Are wages too low?

[love_conquers_lust]

Record high inflation, turnover, product recalls, quality of services and goods dropping, longer hours, increased cross training, increased remote work, increased workplace incidents, decreased community engagement, divorces on the rise. Anger, anger everywhere. The world is figuratively and literally heating up along with increased carbon emissions.

All linked to one thing, pay inequality. The identity crisis in the US is all linked to this. Racism, sexism, xenophobia, abortion, job outsourcing and offshoring, war. All of it, gets stoked when people are pissed off about wages. Employers, and especially corporations are dragging their feet raising wages. They DARE to leverage their market share behind DEI while underpaying everyone. It’s a scam. And don’t be fooled, it’s not all White men doing it either. Whites are in fact a minority on a global scale. The elites are worried about dwindling oil and war breaking out, they espouse equality. Well, it’s hard to espouse equality when the people you’re hiding behind can’t survive to reap the benefits. They wanted to avoid war, and in doing so they’re creating one within. They use Left wing propaganda to distract you. Immigrants who come here, are no different than domestic youth entering the work force. They’re all trying to make a life for themselves. But it doesn’t take long before they too realize, they’re underpaid.

To GAG users, it’s hard to get laid when you can’t afford to.

Yay

Nay

Fuck yes, fuck them elites

Fuck no, fuck them peasants

I don’t care, I’m an uneducated immigrant who ironically thinks Americans are ingrates

I don’t care, sex and my dick and vagina and relationships blah blah blah

Updates

+1 y

Option 5, the word Americans could be substituted for the nationality of any country experiencing the same crisis.

[exitseven]

We now have a lobal economy and there are many people around the world that will work for pennies a day. It is hard for companies to compete while using local talent. Consumers bear some of the blame when they look at the price tag instead of looking for the Made In USA label. When money stays in an economy it has a multiplying effect. The American car you buy provides jobs for dozens of fellow citizens who spend that money buying houses and other goods and services which in turn provides you with a good paying job. When you buy a foreign car all that money gets shipped overseas.

[exitseven]

*global*

[Guy13]

Wages are great…Biden created the inflation that’s killing us.

[love_conquers_lust]

“There’s a shortage of labor…” says employers,”…at the wage you’re offering.” says employees. Vote with your time, if shareholders want to pocket profits they don’t have a stake in, leave. Find the company who isn’t stupid. When you find that company, promote them. No advertisement is stronger than personal recommendation. The wet dream for marketers. When the short termers sell out, and they’re left standing there with a worthless share, hopefully the cash ends up in wiser hands.

[NovaCourier]

Forewarning: this text is LONG...

Part 1:

This crisis of wages and cost of living is nothing new to the human experience. You can actually compare the mess we are in now to what is known as Engels' Pause. This was a period from 1790-1840, in which you can see a lot of the same trends happening that we see today.

The population was rapidly growing, increasing the labour pool and with it, wage competition. Technology was also advancing very quickly due to the beginning of the industrial revolution, and many new technologies greatly reduced labour requirements. More labour available and less labour needed is never good for anyone but the wealthiest few percent. This resulted in massive wealth inequality, rising cost of education, housing, political polarisation, populism, etc.

We see the same things now, only bigger. Rapid population growth (even more so than during the 19th century) and the rise of automation and AI, which shrinks labour requirements. All of this has had the exact same effect. The west has been hit especially hard here as a lot of jobs have been outsourced to countries with cheaper labour, like China. This is why the US and British mining industries have largely closed down, for example.

The increase in women in the workforce also contributed to this, though this is a bit more complex. While in the past, having housekeepers was very necessary, due to large families, those families became increasingly urbanised, so the number of children women had went down, as urban families don't need as many children as agricultural families. In addition, improvements in household appliances and technologies made the housewife role a lot less demanding. Washing clothes or crockery were long, tedious and often tiring tasks in the past, but washing machines and dishwashers rendered those tasks rather trivial. This meant that women suddenly had a lot less to do, which may explain why modern psychologists have identified a pattern of rising boredom and worsening mental health among women in the 1950s and 60s. This also explains why women entering the workforce was such a rapid process. So, while many traditionalists might like the traditional female housewife gender role to return, I'm afraid it is extremely unlikely and unrealistic that women will ever go back to it.

End of part 1.

[NovaCourier]

Part 2:

Lots of unusual things have happened as a result of all these things. The election of Donald Trump, for instance. Regardless of what you think of him, he is a product of this crisis. People in America were fed up with the status quo and Trump seemed to bring something new to the office. Unlike his opponents, he wasn't a politician which gave him an advantage as, while his opponents seemed to represent the risk of simply repeating history, Trump seemed to represent a change from the norm. Trump isn't the only example. Boris Johnson, in the UK is another example. Both adopted nationalistic platforms, seemed to be different from other politicians and they were often entertaining, rather than formal and boring. Although, in reality, neither of them, nor their opponents could fix the problem. It's a societal issue that politicians can't solve at a whim, so it's no use blaming the Left, the Right, or anyone else for that matter. There are so many causes, most of which are not the result of the actions of any one person, but rather, everyone to a small extent, and that adds up when there are billions of us on this planet.

End of part 2

[NovaCourier]

Part 3:

So how is this likely to end? Well, we're probably in for a few rough decades, but in the end, things will get better. The only downside is that the better world won't be for us. It will be for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Engels' Pause culminated in the revolutions of 1848 across Europe, but as food prices eventually went down due to improved farming, living standards improved dramatically. The end of 19th century and early 20th century were a prosperous era for the industrial world, until World War 1. It will be the same thing next time, probably when energy prices go down as the world slowly phases out fossil fuels and as population growth stops by about 2100. As that happens, quality of life for the individual will improve a lot. There are still concerns about things like population aging, especially for Europe, but human longevity research may help there, by improving the human healthspan. So, instead of retiring at 65 and dying at 80, we might retire at 85 and live to 100. This might greatly reduce the pressure on the young population. This is theoretical, but it's something we can hope for.

[love_conquers_lust]

That was long, and thought out. Thanks for the warning.

That’s a good historical example. However, I want to point out differences in todays scenario:

-CoVid and the War in the Ukraine are the primary drivers for low wages and a local variation that are temporary
-Recent inflation driven by Democrats are a natural response to keeping taxpayers alive, both from sickness and being reluctant to go to war
-There likely is no energy revolution coming down the pipe for a few centuries, we don’t know of any untapped reservoir of energy outside of a breakthrough in fusion or something which looks unlikely to happen in that time
-We’ve overshot predicted population carrying capacities for the world and we’re going to see more gradual price negotiations as peak oil is approached
-Reducing fertility rates are a crucial component in taking pressure off demand for resources
-It’s going to be a battle to maintain standards of living per capita
-Ideas cross borders and developing countries will not stop improving and demanding more
-I agree with you on women. With the advent of smart phones snd the proliferation of information both good and bad, it’s not a good idea to leave anyone isolated at home with their own thoughts trying to navigate today’s political landscape if they’re not educated /intelligent enough to exercise sound judgement

[convo_king89]

I know why companies are cheap, it’s for profits. Companies dont want to pay a lot, which is why u see young folks work two jobs/Uber and u can afford a house. Then the upper management is sitting in the pool of chocolate saying yea fuck the world with their company bonuses and 100k+ salary. Income gap is widening.

[PolarDip]

Wages are definitely too low. Unless they make more than I do, in which case their wages are much too high.