71 months.

[Ferno]

https://blog.dol.gov/2016/02/05/what-th ... -tells-us/

consecutive job growth, coming in at 151,000.

[callmeslick]

had we invested far more in infrastructure and alternative energy research, we'd be doing better, but it's a decent rebound from a dreadful mess.

[woodchip]

And yet the middle class has been declining during the same period.

[Spidey]

So what does 71 months of job growth tell us?

Recessions come to an end…

The economy runs in cycles…

Capitalism is resilient…

America is awesome…oh, no we aren’t allowed to say that anymore.

Just exactly what?

[Sergeant Thorne]

More people working multiple jobs?

[callmeslick]

And yet the middle class has been declining during the same period.

hence the need to ramp up the economic paradigm shift a bit more. Obama saved the economy. Bernie will fix it.

[Spidey]

Bernie will fix it.

Not according to David Brooks, and after listening to what he had to say...I have to agree.

[Tunnelcat]

As much as I like Sanders and I'd vote for him, I don't think he can be elected president. Why? Because people with money, and that includes a lot of wealthy retired Baby Boomers, are going to be risk averse when it comes to their money, and you know that they're going to worry about that with Bernie is calling for raising taxes on the wealthy. It all depends on what tax bracket Bernie wants to go after with his tax hikes. It's also going to take quite a few young people, specifically Millennials, to overcome the monetary risk aversion of the Boomers during the election.

[callmeslick]

I'm a well off baby boomer, and I support Bernie precisely BECAUSE I am risk-averse(VERY risk averse). The course we are on is potentially disasterous, and needs to be addressed before we either collapse the economy via the drive for short term gains, or collapse the social fabric when the bulk of the populace realizes they have become nothing short of peasants. You just do not understand how baby boom people of means thinks. Some of us have succumbed to the call of absolute greed, but most of us are comfortable, wish to stay that way, and very conservative with money. That latter group, see the ongoing wealth gap as a clear, and the greatest, source of potential economic debacle. You'd be quite pleasantly surprised to drive around my neighborhood, one of the nation's more affluent zip codes, and see how many Bernie bumper stickers are popping up on those BMWs, Jaguars and the like.

[woodchip]

And yet the middle class has been declining during the same period.

hence the need to ramp up the economic paradigm shift a bit more. Obama saved the economy. Bernie will fix it.

Yeah, a commie/socialist dinosaur is going to fix the economy...just like Obama promised us hope and change...well we did get the change part.

[callmeslick]

with Obama, you got your economic ass saved from disaster. Sort of like Vietnam derailed the War on Poverty, the massive recession derailed a lot of what Obama wanted to do because of the need for trillions to rescue the national economy. Calling Sanders a Communist shows me a combination of things: You don't understand what Communism is, nor what Bernie's style of Social Democracy is(goes back to Roosevelt, who got elected 4 times running on it), you realize the opposition doesn't have a blasted thing to offer but scare tactics and more misery for workers and you're scared.

[callmeslick]

the other day, in another forum, a member asked me, how, in my opinion, we address the stagnation of the median income. I wrote the following, and I think it is pertinent here, TC(sorry about the language in one spot, different board rules for that, and there are references to a couple folks on the board tossed in:

we have, luckily enough, a damn near perfect blueprint. It was the Eisenhower years and onward until the Vietnam war fecked up the cash flow and tied up the younger workforce:1) Use a more drastic taxation scale weighted against very high income brackets. In 1955, any income over $200,000 in a year was taxed at 90%(no one has the political will to get to that, but still, that's what worked). That would translate, with inflation to income over about 1 million bucks. Lower brackets of income would drop to a 10% bottom bracket. What this sort of scheme did in the day was to put pressure on executive compensation away from salaries and towards long-term stock options(which are cap gains income). 2) return cap gains income taxes to a 25% rate. This really doesn't accomplish a whole lot other than bolster worker confidence that investment income is taxed at the same rate as work income(Reagan saw that to be good, as you likely know) 3) get the government back into underwriting a LOT of fundamental scientific research, which is pricey for a corporation to justify the risk of zero return. This sort of thing between 1955 and 1972 led to two decades plus of economic payoffs(a bonanza, actually) when the basic research generates ideas for R and D of actual consumer or industrial goods. All of these, combined, give you an economy that starts to focus on long-term growth, which generates long-term professional employment, and doesn't fritter away capital upon speculation and the circle of fee-charging such speculation generates. edit--note that a glance at history shows that this period of time did not prevent anyone from becoming rich, or remaining rich. It just maintained a sensible balance. The middle class boomed.

Another factor here, DH, is, as I noted, the imminent change in the whole economic game. We are moving to a world in which the need for human manual labor of even moderate skill is rendered obsolete by robotics and automation. Thus, the workforce will be in research, development, creative endeavors and service sectors, with the same small segment of medical, legal or other professionals of high caliber. If we don't have a workforce of primarily well-educated adults, that median isn't going to budge, because more and more people will be earning essentially nothing, because there will be absolutely NO job for them, past labor at absolute world-rock-bottom wages. The nations that rise to the top in this post labor economy will be those who emphasize, even SUBSIDIZE higher education, creative learning(the Arts) and specialized skill learning, and making such accessible to the absolute best our society has, with ZERO regard for cost of educating them(yes, free ★■◆●ing college, Pud). The Germans seem to have caught on to this set of goals, as have the Scandinavians, and the US, like them, still has the residual wealth and economic strength to survive the transition. What the US cannot afford is another decade or so of dithering. We will be left at the post.

Sorry for the long-windedness, but it was a great question that deserved a fleshed out answer.

[Spidey]

I agree with a lot of what you say in that post, but I still get the impression that you deliberately leave out many things about the post war economy, that simply can’t be duplicated, or compensated for with tax policy.

[callmeslick]

I agree with a lot of what you say in that post, but I still get the impression that you deliberately leave out many things about the post war economy, that simply can’t be duplicated, or compensated for with tax policy.

such as? In fact, parts of what was 'left out'(generally in the interest of some brevity) even point to WHY it is eminently possible. Eisenhower, on top of large war debts already on the books, borrowed to spend on infrastructure and it paid off within 15 years. Also,the post war economy required a lot of retraining and re-incorporation of people into the work place. Ditto today. Still, point out what you are thinking about, Spidey.

[woodchip]

I agree with a lot of what you say in that post, but I still get the impression that you deliberately leave out many things about the post war economy, that simply can’t be duplicated, or compensated for with tax policy.

such as? In fact, parts of what was 'left out'(generally in the interest of some brevity) even point to WHY it is eminently possible. Eisenhower, on top of large war debts already on the books, borrowed to spend on infrastructure and it paid off within 15 years. Also,the post war economy required a lot of retraining and re-incorporation of people into the work place. Ditto today. Still, point out what you are thinking about, Spidey.

What is left out are all the tax write offs in the tax code back in the 50's. Or did you think people making more that 200k were actually paying 90% of their income in taxes.

[Spidey]

I’ve already given the list of important differences between the post war economy and today’s, you seem to relish repeating yourself…but I do not.

But I will give a few…

1. The massive demand for American made goods and services by the American consumer and most of the world due to the almost complete destruction of the world’s infrastructure.

2. The migration from cities to the suburbs, giving a boost to the construction and other industries.

3. The technology threshold…that being the fact that most of what we view as the modern world has already been invented. (that’s actually not my theory)

4. Cheap energy.

Etc. none of these things can be replaced by tax policy, that BTW was never intended to be permanent.

As far as education and retraining, sure that is an important part, but we are too big of a nation to all be professionals…a country like ours must make things. Also if you notice, as I mentioned before, there are already too many educated people working low paying jobs.

[callmeslick]

I agree with a lot of what you say in that post, but I still get the impression that you deliberately leave out many things about the post war economy, that simply can’t be duplicated, or compensated for with tax policy.

such as? In fact, parts of what was 'left out'(generally in the interest of some brevity) even point to WHY it is eminently possible. Eisenhower, on top of large war debts already on the books, borrowed to spend on infrastructure and it paid off within 15 years. Also,the post war economy required a lot of retraining and re-incorporation of people into the work place. Ditto today. Still, point out what you are thinking about, Spidey.

What is left out are all the tax write offs in the tax code back in the 50's. Or did you think people making more that 200k were actually paying 90% of their income in taxes.

yes, but those didn't overcome the top bracket. Look, woody, it worked, and will work again.

[callmeslick]

]I'll add comments in red

I’ve already given the list of important differences between the post war economy and today’s, you seem to relish repeating yourself…but I do not.

But I will give a few…

1. The massive demand for American made goods and services by the American consumer and most of the world due to the almost complete destruction of the world’s infrastructure.fair enough, we now live in a world of international demand

2. The migration from cities to the suburbs, giving a boost to the construction and other industries.we are now seeing huge migrations to cities, and building is WAY up, nationwide, because that is coupled with some geographic migration

3. The technology threshold…that being the fact that most of what we view as the modern world has already been invented. (that’s actually not my theory)you are wise to walk away from this, because it is a moronic idea, completely at odds with the history of human development

4. Cheap energy.I think I read something in the paper about low energy prices

Etc. none of these things can be replaced by tax policy, that BTW was never intended to be permanent.where did you read the last part?

As far as education and retraining, sure that is an important part, but we are too big of a nation to all be professionals…a country like ours must make things. Also if you notice, as I mentioned before, there are already too many educated people working low paying jobssorry, but the reality, about 20 years out, is that we will 'make' very little via human hands. Adapt or perish(ok, not so much perish, but accept the status of impoverished serfdom.

[Spidey]

International demand seems to be going to the lowest bidder.

Low oil prices are temporary.

Moving back into the cities doesn’t require nearly the work moving out did.

I was doing some research the last time we did this, and came up with the fact that the taxes were used to reclaim windfall profits directly related to the war, and never meant to be permanent.

No I’m not going to do the entire thing again.

Adapt and survive, I completely agree, but we can't solve the issues we have today by going backwards.