Thought For The Day - 8 April 2025

In classical econ, wages are assumed to be equal to the marginal revenue product. In the real world, wages are determined by political power. Get rid of unions, OSHA, class action litigation, and other worker protections, and wages go down. Allow unions to wield some counter-vailing power against capital, and wages go up. It's no coincidence that mamufacturing employment has fallen with the kneecapping of unionization. It can be argued that union wage gains are just the extortion by unions of higher wages out of the extortion of high prices by big bidnezz. How much of manufacturing labor can be categorized as highly skilled, and thus worthy of middle class earnings?

Here's one report that belies the Right Wingnut myth.

Despite the prominence of the skills-gap debate, a new paper co-written by a University of Illinois expert in labor economics and workforce policy finds that the demand for higher-level skills in U.S. manufacturing jobs is generally modest.
[my emphasis]

As it happens, my rather motley career path has included drone assembly line work. All of those tasks were learnable in a day or two, sometimes an hour or two. That's the main reason manufacturing capitalists always flee to the most welcoming 3^rd world countries on offer. That and no labor laws.

The poor, misbegotten sub-GED crowd, envious of educated middle-class status are willing to buy Mad Dictator Don's baloney. Sure, American capital would willingly pull their factories over here, over here. Just one thing, though: pay workers what they pay in Vietnam (or wherever), get rid of worker protection laws, and subsidize any losses. What could be better? Kind of like what he did for shitkickers last time he tariffed China, who retaliated by squelching ag imports from the USofA. $28 billion. Who said welfare isn't in the DNA of the GOP?