Showing posts with label corporate buybacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate buybacks. Show all posts

Thursday, December 04, 2014

It's the wages, stupid

"I'm no economist," to paraphrase Republican presidential hopefuls. But even a casual reader knows that for 35-odd years the lion's share of economic growth has gone to the wealthiest, and that the trend has accelerated in the last decade.

We're told, e.g. by David Leonhardt, that arresting the trend and creating wage growth is a gigantic mystery, and that Democrats, ostensibly the party of the less-than-wealthy, can only nibble around the edges, as with middle class tax cuts. That is, get GDP growth out of near-neutral and wage pressure will rise.

Now cometh billionaire Nick Hanauer, this generation's class traitor extraordinaire, to call bullshit and place the spotlight squarely on labor law and deliberate policy choices that have eroded workers' leverage vs. owners.  His focus is on wages -- specifically, in the piece below, on overtime pay. You can extrapolate and imagine a party that focuses relentlessly on the rules governing pay and workplace rules. I'm quoting an extended chunk here because I want to add my drops to the ocean, i.e. get a few more people to read this: