Credit vs. Real Wages

[lxlxlxl]

Trumka on BBC's Hardtalk encapsulated this mess the clearest way I've heard -- He said that the top down economic planners have decided to create a system of credit instead of providing real wages to workers. I cant think of an easier and clearer way to put it.

The consequences of that strategy are almost infinite, but the core of the argument should be enough for us to grasp.

Why Credit?
Keep the banking / finance system in control. Everything from first home mortgages to large scale construction projects has to go through finance capital to work. This keeps bankers, insurance agents, lawyers, and traders in business. They trade around ghost capital, and make money off of it.

Think about how many people make around $35K a year, and are expected to live off of that money.
Think about how much money they spend on inflated rent, inflated because home values are kept high to keep the higher-tier incomes happy.

So much effort is poured into the american system of economics in order to keep middle income people as stressed out and stretched thin as humanly possible, all for the sake of preserving income distribution at the top of the curve...either for predictability or self-interest. Either way this system must be crushed, and we should be out in the streets demanding a Real Economy for Real People.

[Idealism]

1. Its a simplistic way of looking at things, but ultimately correct in the sense

that these companies have enabled our credit frenzies that spur growth. The past two decades have been a credit fueled spending fiasco, for the most part, because real wages have been stagnant since 1970 and have largely not met growing inflation and rising cost of living expenses. Credit was something readily available, and by charging us crazy interest but keeping minimum payments low, they ensure a generation of peons keeping their money trough full by paying 95% interest on their payments and never paying down the principal balance.

[lxlxlxl]

2. I am going for simplistic because no one else seems to know how to talk about it.

are we going to get healthcare by explaining cdo's mbs's or glass steagall to people?

libor and credit spreads mean nothing to americans at all.

this is the first time in my life ive seen wall street and major economic figures admit that capitalism doesnt work, and there is no progressive voice in the media able to articulate the consequences.

if i sound a little pissed, it is because i think we are missing The Progressive Moment for our lives.

[PassingFair]

8. We missed it 4 years ago when Dean was shot down by the media.

It has been pillaging full-speed on ever since.

I hope Obama has common sense puts the interests
of the common man above corporate "profits".

[unlawflcombatnt]

3. Absolutely Right on the Money

There isn't anything complicated about it. Americans have been able to offset declines in real wages with increased borrowing. This is not sustainable, and everyone that ever lived knows it.

Eventually people stop lending you money if you can't pay it back. And then you're left with only your declining real wages to purchase goods and services with.

That's where we're at right now.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

It doesn't take an advanced degree in economics to figure it out.

[DemReadingDU]

5. simple is good

morning kick

[formercia]

6. I owe my soul to the company store.

They would give workers scrip that they could exchange for goods at the company store. Rent was paid in scrip. The result was effective slavery for the workers.

Direct deposit was the first salvo.

Once you go to a virtual payment system, it becomes a simple process to control the population. Enact severe penalties for those who barter and use the Total Awareness software to look for any deviant spending patterns.

[craz3z]

7. So true, I think

I know very little about economics, for sure so I was glad to see this post because I, in my own uneducated way, have been trying to argue this point with a supply side proponent. I always thought that supply side economics created the need for credit because it depressed real wages thus creating the need for credit. That may be way off base, simplistic or just plain stupid. It just seems that supply side economics help create jobs, but the workers didn't make enough to be able to buy what they made so the only answer was to offer them easy credit which in turn provided the fuel to feed the beast.

When Reaganomics took over the level of personal savings in the country started declining. I think I saw that the level of personal savings was 11.2% in 1982 and in 2006 was -1.1%.

As Atrios has said: we keep bailing out the fake economy while the real economy gets the shaft.

[PassingFair]

9. I was shocked to find out that SMALL BUSINESSES were

borrowing money every month to meet payroll.

I thought it was *ullshit, so I started asking
the small business owners I work with if it was
SOP to borrow to meet payroll and MANY said yes.

My family's business went under in '82 because
we could no longer afford health care, or raw
materials that we needed, but even WE didn't
BORROW to make payroll, or we would have been
out of business LONG before we were forced into
Chapter 7.

It shows how insidious the credit game had become.

[leftofthedial]

10. that's basically serfdom

convert the entire world to one big company store.