Quote (Thor123422 @ Jan 5 2021 04:46pm)

It's actually even better, since that 99.85 (questionable) number is after mask wearing, social distancing, and shutdowns to keep the hospitals from overflowing, and that also gave doctors time to figure out how to keep people alive through the worst part.

No distancing, no mask wearing, etc. would result in a 2% death rate (this is the minimum with unrestricted spread and only the knowledge we had in March-May) with lots of unrelated deaths since people with unrelated emergencies have no access to ICU beds.

So that's actually a drop from ~6 million.

Quote (NotHomerSimpson @ Jan 5 2021 04:20pm)

But wouldnt the results be marginalized?

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 5 2021 05:24pm)

It's almost as if increased competition from developing countries, with their piss poor wages and non-existent labor and environmental standards, coupled with a steady influx of cheap labor into the U.S. itself, weakens the bargaining position of domestic workers and strengthens the hand of the capital side. :rolleyes: :lol:

Quote (Thor123422 @ 6 Jan 2021 00:55)

Its actually because we stopped making public investment, actively siphoned money with student loans, weakened the social safety net, and gutted unions.

Basically boomers assumed everything would keep chugging along and cut all the things that made their life good.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 5 2021 06:17pm)

Both factors, globalization (of goods and people) picking up steam as well as a change in domestic policy (less investment, trickle down et al.), certainly contributed to the widening gulf between wages and productivity since the 70s. Are there any studies quantifying the role these two factors played?

If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that (failed) domestic policies are the major factor for the lack of wage growth, and that globalization effects only played a minor role, at least comparatively. Tbh, I have a hard time believing this without seeing evidence. It seems really counterintuitive.

Quote (Thor123422 @ 6 Jan 2021 01:32)

China didn't become the world's foremost manufacturer of solar panels from 2010 to 2015 because they had dirt cheap wages. They massively subsidized their companies which gave them a competitive edge. There were plenty of American companies that were attempting to domestically manufacture them here and failed because of the massive subsidy China gave them.

Now consider that we've had more than enough money and technology available to kick off the solar revolution since about 1980, and actively chose not to.

Science isn't this force that steadily advances in the background. It advances with funding. Basically every industry that employed a ton of people from 1970 to now came as a result of massive scientific investment in the 50's to the 70's. The internet, green energy, pharmaceuticals, etc.

It's really not weird at all, one of the major failed domestic policies is lack of investment in public works, which makes high skill jobs, scientific investment, which makes high skill jobs, education incentives, which creates high skill workers, social safety net, which allows the public to have more investment in small business by lowering risk of poverty if it fails, etc. etc.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 5 2021 06:47pm)

You're arguing that state investment has really strong long-term ripple effects, and I dont disagree. But independently from this factor, I just think that globalization must also have undercut the bargaining position of workers significantly. They were increasingly pitted against cheaper workers (and workplaces due to less regulations) in other countries and increasingly had the supply-demand balance on the domestic labor market brought out of wack due to a steady influx of foreign workers into both the low-wage (illegals) and the high-wage (H1B) sectors. These development cannot possibly have occurred without a dampening effect on domestic wages.

It's like... you actually make a good point, one which is brought up less often than the globalization-argument - but focusing exclusively on this point and disregarding everything else seems short-sighted and unjustified.

Quote (Thor123422 @ 6 Jan 2021 01:51)

Immigration has always depressed wages. Its priced into the pre globalization historical data.

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Your over valuing low wage jobs in your analysis. If we had kept up our education and science investment that wouldn't have been as much of an issue. A factory worker making shirts in china isnt really a competitor to a high skill job in the USA. Similarly the glut of educated foreign workers is relatively recent and wouldnt have been as much of an issue.

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One big thing is the return from public investment is under estimated by most people. The absolute lowest I've ever seen for scientific investment is $2 return for every dollar investment and that's with some really negative assumptions. We should honestly 10x all science funding. Were leaving money on the table by not doing so.

Quote (SunnyvaleTrailerPark @ 5 Jan 2021 10:55)

You ended our conversation with a meme?

That's exactly what i meant by what i said. A single picture kinda summed up this generation facing our problems. Replying with meme. Lot of that on youtube comments as well.

Now i understand why you are happy to settle for a 20-30$/h slave salary... That's called Slavery bud. You're making people rich out of your welfare salary.. but hey, if your happy to work for crumbs, go ahead. That's what no education get you 20-30$ . Most people working in metal shops get that salary and even more which you can get with a grade 7.

I would like to take two minutes to thank Covid. Because of Covid

- There's no more FLU
- There's no more ALLERGIES
- There's no more ...
- ...

THERE'S COVID. The only sickness people die in 2020! #Covid #CorporationsTakingOver

Guess you will get all mom n pops companies real estate now they can't pay up no more? You got it!
Guess who will get all these prime spots? You got it!

Thankyou the people!

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 5 2021 07:16pm)

The share of the foreign born among America's population reached its lowest point in the early 70s, as a result of the decades of very low immigration levels between the 1920s (Immigration Act of 1924 in particular) and the 1960s (Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965).

Duh. Of course a Chinese worker in a shirt factory is no competitor for a high skill job in the USA. But if a low education American worker loses his job because of the Chinese competitor, this takes money out of the domestic economy and reduces the overall prosperity.

Local shops will feel the reduced demand, invest less, create less new jobs, and so on. Or the American textile worker ends up on welfare, meaning that the state has to either raise taxes on the high-skilled worker to pay for it, or reduce its investment into infrastructure and research to compensate the increased welfare expenditures. Or he has to look for a new job in a different field, where he will increase the labor supply and thus allow the capital side to retain a larger share of the cake. Either way, all of the bottom 90% lose, even those whose job is not directly threatened.

This I can agree with, at least if we're talking about proper, "hard" science in the STEM sense rather than feminist dance therapy. ;)