Greenspan Says Workers' Lack of Skills Lowers Wages

[papau]

Greenspan thinks the problem is not that the economy is producing lower-quality jobs than it has in the past, it is just that "wage sluggishness reflects the fact that many workers are ill-prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that the economy offers."


Greenspan Says Workers' Lack of Skills Lowers Wages


By Nell Henderson Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 22, 2004; Page A01


Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, disputing election-year assertions that the U.S. economy is producing lower-quality jobs than it has in the past, said yesterday that continuing wage sluggishness reflects the fact that many workers are ill-prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that the economy offers.

Growing U.S. income inequality largely reflects differences in workers' education and job skills, not an underlying problem with the economy, Greenspan said during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, echoing many of the remarks he made before a Senate committee the day before.

The growing pay gap reflects the "skill premium" commanded by relatively higher-educated, better-trained workers, and represents "a major problem of matching skills of workers to the technological base of the economy, which I believe is an education issue and requires that we address that as quickly and broadly as we can."

Greenspan, in similar remarks earlier this year, said it is critical that the nation better prepare its workers. The alternative is a workforce increasingly divided between those able to earn and compete and those struggling to get by.<snip>

Average hourly and weekly earnings for non-supervisory workers were lower in June, on an inflation-adjusted basis, than in November 2001, when the recession ended and the recovery began, according to an analysis of the Labor Department data by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on labor issues.<snip>

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Michigan jobs destroyed in manufacturing, but new jobs created at WalMart

http://www.mlive.com/business/sanews/index.ssf?/base/business-0/1090419624202040.xml

Plant in Frankenmuth closes; 54 out of work

http://www.mlive.com/business/jacitpat/index.ssf?/base/business-0/1090145383226630.xml

Creating hundreds of jobs
Wal-Mart brings new employment

[havocmom]

1. gotta hope some unimployed IT workers give his PC a terminal bug (n/t)

[Langis]

2. Greenspan needs to be replaced

He is a total shill. This is word for word what Bush wants him to say :argh:

[glitch]

22. talk about an obsolete skill set - Greenspan's is somewhere in the 50s

nostalgic for Ayn Rand.

[jdj]

3. the "technological base of the economy" is moving overseas

Greensphincter!

What an ass. The region I live in is flooded by hispanic immigrants, and wages are lowered, not raised, because of their skill level, which is untrained and desperate for work.

Where I used to live in NC there were an equal number of russian and ukranian immigrants as well, same situation.

[tom_paine]

4. "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"

Greenspan is a Bushevik Whore, plain and simple.

If he had any integrity at one time there is no trace of it now.

[colonel odis]

5. yes, yes. of course, it's the workers' fault.

asswipe.

[mindem]

6. What a load of crap!!

The cheap labor repukes have done everything they can to compress wages for middle and low income workers. How can a work force compete with jobs outsourced to countries that pay workers a dollar fifty a day. "It's the workers fault" ...give me a break.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

7. Opportunities that the economy offers

[RoyGBiv]

8. Mule Fritters!!!

Sorry...channeling Sherman Potter at the moment.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. This worker says...

Greeny's lack of skills is a big reason for our economic mess and he needs to go to work at McDonalds.

[gtar100]

10. His message was meant for corporate execs

This news will ease their conscience as they suck the life out of the American economy.

Greenspan is nothing but an anti-American capitalist.

[thomas_a]

11. Atlas Shrugged

Alan Greenspan was a disciple of libertarian writer Ayn Rand. If you read her novel "Atlas Shrugged" you might recall one of the plot threads featured a heroic pirate who roamed the high seas seizing government ships and returning the booty to the ordinary citizens from whom it had been stolen. Ayn Rand viewed taxation as a form of theft. The government ships, and all of their contents, were stolen goods which should be returned to their rightful owners.

The way I see things is that Alan Greenspan has spent most of his life feeding at the public trough. All of his wealth comes from the tax dollars paid by hard working Americans like you and me. If we are to agree with Alan Greenspan that taxation is a form of theft then all of his wealth rightfully belongs to us. Perhaps a visit to Mr. Greenspan's luxurious abode for the purposes of reclaiming our stolen property is in order?

[joeybee12]

14. Welcome, and you're right---Ayn Rand was a nut who couldn't write

And knowing that Greenspan is an ardent follower, amkes me shuddre for our fate!

[jdj]

23. Re; atlas shrugged, yeah, we all know pirates like that. mmmhmm.

Randi Rhodes says it best, if you don't like taxes, don't use the infrastructure of this country, which includes the roads running past our houses.

That is such a stretch, deifying A PIRATE to make that point. But of course, we don't live in a serfdom, in which case Rand would have some validity. Libertarians, they all seem to be middle to upper class white kids; reminds me of that saying "who wants to listen to spoiled brats whine." That's all they are, spoiled brats who can't face the fact that they are "the man" and trying to portray themselves as victims somehow.

[thomas_a]

28. Re; atlas shrugged, yeah, we all know pirates like that. mmmhmm

I read Ayn Rand's books many years ago and spent some time thinking about her libertarian creed. At the time, what I saw as the ultimate breakdown for her ideas is that it is impossible to live in collective society without some sort of notion of the common good. One of the things that makes us human is living in a communal society. We simply cannot survive without it unlike many other animals. To do so we must surrender some of our individual freedom and individual resources for the greater good. There are many things that anger me about the Bush/Cheney/Greenspan cabal but the one that angers me the most is that they want all of the benefits of collective society with none of the responsibility.

[glitch]

24. Sounds good - but he's not alone - Bush and Cheney et al

made most of their loot off the government.
Welcome to DU!

[calico1]

12. Oh, I get it.

There is a lot of unemployment because there are just a lot of dumb asses, right? :mad:

[Cocoa]

13. liar

he knows that's not true.

[DaveClearwater99]

19. Wrong Greenie

I've given up keeping my skills in IT current. It no longer matters what an American's skills are when the company can bring in indentured servants under L-1 and H1-b programs.

My employer passed over a number of American citizens for a data warehouse position and took an H1-B for the simple stated reason that he would take less money. Of course he would, he'd lost his current job and would have been sent back to South Africa if he didn't take what they offered. Is that really a free market ?

The future for American workers who want to be in demand is in manual labor, tasks that have to be performed in the US rather than intellectual tasks that can be performed in third world countries for less money.

Things will change eventually but only after our wages approximate those of India and China. I guess when you cling to pure economic theory that's a good thing.

[redqueen]

21. I hope you're contacting your rep & senators often

and writing LTTE's as well.

Every year the number of L-1's and H1-b's is INCREASED... job market and IT labor unemployment be damned.

This is an outrage and more people need to be made aware that his claim is total BS.

[DaveClearwater99]

25. So let me keep ranting

I was at an advanced Oracle class last spring that was hard to schedule because it was continually canceled. Many of the 3rd party companies that used to teach IT courses have gone out of business from lack of demand for IT training in the US.

Oracle had just dropped 80% of it's training staff. The instructor was blunt enough to say that this was done because software work isn't being done in the US anymore.

Should I invest in a move to something like nursing ? Probably not. I was in the hospital a year and a half ago and on a Sunday the place was suddenly filled with Indian nursing students who were brought in by a firm that used to recruit IT workers.

Greenie just has a total disconnect from reality on the training topic. There's no shortage of well trained Americans there's just a shortage of well trained people who have realized that they have to work for subsistence wages.

[Tempest]

15. It's official, Greenspan is Bush's whore

I know many high skilled people, including new post-graduate job seekers, out of work who would take great offense at Greenspan's comments.

[Warpy]

16. Greenspan is the guy who has a hissy fit every time a working

person gets a raise. He's put his stamp of approval on the US policy of actively trying to lower the wages of its people, while keeping their taxes and costs high and going higher.

Greenspan is lying, and I think he knows damned full well he's lying. The problem is hardly lack of skills, as US workers are among the best educated and most skillful in the world, along with the most productive. The problem isn't the lack of appropriate skills, as the rush to offshore is starting to hit everything that doesn't require direct face to face contact.

Greenspan is the enemy of the working person, and it's high bloody time the working person recognized this fact. His "skill gap" refers to the gap between well born upper management who got their jobs more through family intervention than through hard work or merit and the rest of us. The only "skill" relevant to Greenspan is the one of being born into the correct family, the correct socioeconomic class.

Greenspan has got to go. His policies are contrary to the interest of most Americans and have been for many years. The constant drumbeat that inflation is caused by paying workers enough to live on instead of from factors like petroleum profiteering is sheer insanity, and accepted as dogma by him and his ilk.

The sad part is that even if he goes, he will probably be replaced by somebody he has mentored. However, getting rid of him will be progress.

[livinginphotographs]

17. Hmmm...well in that case

when can I expect your personal check for my college tuition, Mr. Greenspan?

I just love being lectured about self-improvement by millionaires who've been on the public dole most of their career.

[Snellius]

18. So if everyone would just go to med school we would all be doctors

This is typical elitist Republican social thinking: The poor are poor because they're lazy or morally unfit or smell bad or are lower on the evolutionary scale. The rich are rich because of divine right of class.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

20. January 21, 2005

President John Kerry asks for Alan Greenspan's resignation.

Look for Greenspan to say anything and everything during the next 100 days to support Bush. He's knows damned well that he's going to be out of work if Kerry is elected.

[David Zephyr]

26. This Story Should Be in Latest Breaking News And Not Buried Here.

This is one of the most insensitive comment possible from the head of the Fed. If this doesn't belong in LBN, what does?

[David Zephyr]

27. Greenspan Should Tell This to The Engineers in Silicon Valley

who have seen their research and development jobs be outsourced to China and India and Malaysia by their global corporate masters.

I suppose that Alan Greenspan figures that these workers who have high education credentials and decades of R&D experience need to IMPROVE their work skill by learning how to say:

"Will that be paper or plastic?"

Greenspan is a capitalist pig, nothing more.

American workers lack "skills", my ass!

[Moderator]

30. This is being discussed in Late Breaking News

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=701819&mesg_id=701819

[David Zephyr]

32. Thanks for the Link.

:thumbsup:

[skippysmom]

29. Most of the unemployed people I know

are highly educated and highly skilled.

I have two masters degrees, and my "skills premium" is pretty small.

[Centre_Left]

31. Well...

I think there is some truth in what Greenspan is saying. In my school district, a significant percentage of students graduate each year with literacy skills that are questionable to say the least. At my (large, middle-tier, public) university where I major in information systems management, there is a tremendous demand among companies for those among us with skills and experience in VB.NET, Oracle, and IT analysis & design. Yet, many people graduate with only the barest of programming skills and almost no practical experience or certifications. The professors prefer to teach "management" rather than programming. Our peers from India who arrive here to study in our program from schools like the Indian Institute of Technology are vastly more skilled than we are.

With Sarbanes-Oxley, there is also unbelievably high demand for people with both accounting and IT backgrounds (to work as systems auditors) but very few people are available to fulfill that need.

[cap]

33. you've gotta be kidding...

there are scads of unemployed programmers -- people with 10+ years of experience who've picked up vb.net, oracle, it analysis and design. Just take a sample of people on this board! There are lots of profs who teach programming. Also, the professors are trying to teach you how to build systems and not just be a code monkey. These are the concepts you will use later in your career as a lead programmer.

Certifications are no big deal.

As for IIT, IIT folks often know the semantics of the code but do not know how to build systems. Their architectures are appallingly bad. It is their legacy from THEIR poor high schools modeled after the British system. They know how to memorize and can spit the textbook back at you letter perfect but they do not know how to apply that knowledge and how a change to one part of the system affects another. If NCLB continues our next generation will have the same problems.

As far as Sarbanes Oxley, it's good to have people with dual degrees. But historically, we have solved these problems before in the past with SME's (Subject Matter Experts) paired with IT people.