7 ms·

You realize $7 an hour is $95,000 a year in 2019 cash? If i were offered that for hangover quality work burning rods at a good union job i would not think twic

You realize $7 an hour is $95,000 a year in 2019 cash? If i were offered that for hangover quality work burning rods at a good union job i would not think twice. id be able to afford the median home price in 1970 which was $23,000. These numbers seem to support the idea of the wealthy welder. Its entirely possible fossilized republicans are thinking in 1970 dollars. Fast forward to 2019. auto mechanics START at just shy of 22,000 a year and thats assuming you keep track of your time and work for a shop that doesnt engage in the rampant practice of wage theft. master mechanic? depends, maybe $28 an hour in 2019? but nowhere near the $46 an hour a twice convicted tombstone welder made back when the Love Boat sailed. The problem is not trade, or college, its the seemingly endless wealth gap between people who do work, and people who just seem to collect mansions and yachts.

hangonhn 7y ago
The last sentence really hits the nail on the head. Just to add to that, during the 2008 recession I saw my portfolio swing pretty wildly going negative one day and positive another but the amount was more than I made that day or maybe even that week. It was then it dawned on me, American capitalism rewards ownership, not labor nor time devoted to a task. Those changes in my net worth would have happened regardless of if I worked or took the day off. Time and labor can get you to ownership but that's not guaranteed nor probable in some fields. I don't want our country to discourage property ownership and accumulation of wealth but the paths leading to that from working hard seems increasingly fewer and narrower.
- abacadaba 7y ago
  aka, capitalism
- rm_-rf_slash 7y ago
  This comment shouldn’t have been downvoted because it’s completely accurate, and provably so: tax rates for earnings on capital are by and large less than earnings on labor. Warren Buffett has complained for years that he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. The system we have rewards trust fund babies, and punishes hard working people.
  - droithomme 7y ago
    An alternative view is that it rewards investment in the economy.
    - rm_-rf_slash 7y ago
      Work is an investment the economy. Hell, raising kids and taking care of disabled/elderly people is an investment in the economy too. Those folks and their caretakers are consumers just as much as you and me. Why does there need to be a privileged reward to invest? Everyone and their dog knows if you keep your money stuffed in your mattress it’ll lose value over time from inflation, and who doesn’t want to have a nest egg to retire on? Nobody needs an additional incentive to invest their capital beyond the bare bones basics of personal finance.
  - ridgeguy 7y ago
    See also Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. TLDR: RoI (capital) > RoI (labor), with the expected consequences.
    - ChrisLomont 7y ago
      Plenty of good subsequent research has shown this to be not supported. Go to google scholar and start looking through Econ papers citing Piketty.
      - ridgeguy 7y ago
        Would you give me a link or two to start? I get that Piketty's work isn't without controversy or criticism. Summers and others have criticized it, but their critiques haven't seemed very strong. One article [1] (which discusses Piketty's shortcomings) claims the biggest reaction to Piketty is silence: "But perhaps the greatest rebuke of Piketty to be found among academic economics is not contained in any of these overt or veiled attacks on his scholarship and interpretation, but rather in the deafening silence that greets it, as well as inequality in general, in broad swathes of the field—even to this day." ... "The economics elite, it seems, answered by stonewalling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, so it would not have the impact on economics research agendas that it merits." Anyway, it's not clear to me that Piketty's fundamental thesis is wrong. Happy to follow a link or two, thank you. [1] http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-why-are-economists-giving-piketty-cold-shoulder http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-... edited for a typo
- RhysU 7y ago
  > American capitalism rewards ownership, not labor nor time devoted to a task. It's in the name, after all. One performs labor to (ideally) incrementally increase ownership. The concept thrives in the public mind as go-pay-off-a-house but (ideally) would also stick as go-buy-some-equities too.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    One performs labor to enrich the bourgeoisie. The only way anyone was able to “work hard” to increase any kind of ownership was through supportive government after WWII. It’s no coincidence that the middle class is shrinking and wealth is being accumulated in fewer and fewer hands.
- journalctl 7y ago
  Indeed, capitalism rewards those who own the means of production at the expense of the people who labor to support it. A lot has been written about this.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tootie 7y ago
Inflation was rampant in the 70s though. He says mid-70s. $7/hr in 1970 would be $95K today, but $7/hr in 1975 would be like $68K. And that seems comparably the high end of pay given in the article. https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=14000&year1=197501&year2=201908 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=14000&year1=19...
danielsmay1 7y ago
You realize that he said the machines were first made in the mid-70s? If he stopped welding around the time that the Internet was taking off, that would mean that it was $5-7/hour in the early to mid 90s NOT 1970. The "now 20 years later" later in the comment backs this up. $5-7/hour in the 1990 is $20-30k in 2019 money, which is about what your example mechanic is making.
- oblib 7y ago
  You're right. 1990-92 is "about the time I quit" building vans for quadriplegics to drive and that's what I was referring to in regards to the $5-$7 per hour those companies I sub-contracted from were paying. And that was at most and it was not a "living" wage in Los Angeles back then.
droithomme 7y ago
"when the internet started taking off" was the late 90s. Not the mid 70s when he started. Even if he meant $5-7 (average $6) in 1975, the $95k doesn't work. bls.gov inflation calculator gives $12,000 a year in January 1975 (2000 hrs at $6/hr) as $59k for August 2019. $12,000 salary in January 1998 is $19,000 today.
lisper 7y ago
> people who just seem to collect mansions and yachts You skipped a couple of steps. The full process goes like this: 1. Hire someone to produce something. Pay then $X. 2. Sell the the thing they produced back to them for $Y where Y>X. 3. Pocket $(Y-X) 4. Use some of the proceeds to pay lobbyists to pressure legislators to pass laws that make it illegal for anyone else to enter your market 5. Buy yacht
ken 7y ago
> You realize $7 an hour is $95,000 a year in 2019 cash? That's assuming you get 40 hours a week of work.

hangonhn 7y ago

The last sentence really hits the nail on the head. Just to add to that, during the 2008 recession I saw my portfolio swing pretty wildly going negative one day and positive another but the amount was more than I made that day or maybe even that week. It was then it dawned on me, American capitalism rewards ownership, not labor nor time devoted to a task. Those changes in my net worth would have happened regardless of if I worked or took the day off. Time and labor can get you to ownership but that's not guaranteed nor probable in some fields. I don't want our country to discourage property ownership and accumulation of wealth but the paths leading to that from working hard seems increasingly fewer and narrower.

abacadaba 7y ago
aka, capitalism
rm_-rf_slash 7y ago
This comment shouldn’t have been downvoted because it’s completely accurate, and provably so: tax rates for earnings on capital are by and large less than earnings on labor. Warren Buffett has complained for years that he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. The system we have rewards trust fund babies, and punishes hard working people.
- droithomme 7y ago
  An alternative view is that it rewards investment in the economy.
  - rm_-rf_slash 7y ago
    Work is an investment the economy. Hell, raising kids and taking care of disabled/elderly people is an investment in the economy too. Those folks and their caretakers are consumers just as much as you and me. Why does there need to be a privileged reward to invest? Everyone and their dog knows if you keep your money stuffed in your mattress it’ll lose value over time from inflation, and who doesn’t want to have a nest egg to retire on? Nobody needs an additional incentive to invest their capital beyond the bare bones basics of personal finance.
- ridgeguy 7y ago
  See also Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. TLDR: RoI (capital) > RoI (labor), with the expected consequences.
  - ChrisLomont 7y ago
    Plenty of good subsequent research has shown this to be not supported. Go to google scholar and start looking through Econ papers citing Piketty.
    - ridgeguy 7y ago
      Would you give me a link or two to start? I get that Piketty's work isn't without controversy or criticism. Summers and others have criticized it, but their critiques haven't seemed very strong. One article [1] (which discusses Piketty's shortcomings) claims the biggest reaction to Piketty is silence: "But perhaps the greatest rebuke of Piketty to be found among academic economics is not contained in any of these overt or veiled attacks on his scholarship and interpretation, but rather in the deafening silence that greets it, as well as inequality in general, in broad swathes of the field—even to this day." ... "The economics elite, it seems, answered by stonewalling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, so it would not have the impact on economics research agendas that it merits." Anyway, it's not clear to me that Piketty's fundamental thesis is wrong. Happy to follow a link or two, thank you. [1] http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-why-are-economists-giving-piketty-cold-shoulder http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-... edited for a typo
RhysU 7y ago
> American capitalism rewards ownership, not labor nor time devoted to a task. It's in the name, after all. One performs labor to (ideally) incrementally increase ownership. The concept thrives in the public mind as go-pay-off-a-house but (ideally) would also stick as go-buy-some-equities too.
- journalctl 7y ago
  One performs labor to enrich the bourgeoisie. The only way anyone was able to “work hard” to increase any kind of ownership was through supportive government after WWII. It’s no coincidence that the middle class is shrinking and wealth is being accumulated in fewer and fewer hands.
journalctl 7y ago
Indeed, capitalism rewards those who own the means of production at the expense of the people who labor to support it. A lot has been written about this.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tootie 7y ago

Inflation was rampant in the 70s though. He says mid-70s. $7/hr in 1970 would be $95K today, but $7/hr in 1975 would be like $68K. And that seems comparably the high end of pay given in the article. https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=14000&year1=197501&year2=201908 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=14000&year1=19...

danielsmay1 7y ago

You realize that he said the machines were first made in the mid-70s? If he stopped welding around the time that the Internet was taking off, that would mean that it was $5-7/hour in the early to mid 90s NOT 1970. The "now 20 years later" later in the comment backs this up. $5-7/hour in the 1990 is $20-30k in 2019 money, which is about what your example mechanic is making.

oblib 7y ago
You're right. 1990-92 is "about the time I quit" building vans for quadriplegics to drive and that's what I was referring to in regards to the $5-$7 per hour those companies I sub-contracted from were paying. And that was at most and it was not a "living" wage in Los Angeles back then.

droithomme 7y ago

"when the internet started taking off" was the late 90s. Not the mid 70s when he started. Even if he meant $5-7 (average $6) in 1975, the $95k doesn't work. bls.gov inflation calculator gives $12,000 a year in January 1975 (2000 hrs at $6/hr) as $59k for August 2019. $12,000 salary in January 1998 is $19,000 today.

lisper 7y ago

> people who just seem to collect mansions and yachts You skipped a couple of steps. The full process goes like this: 1. Hire someone to produce something. Pay then $X. 2. Sell the the thing they produced back to them for $Y where Y>X. 3. Pocket $(Y-X) 4. Use some of the proceeds to pay lobbyists to pressure legislators to pass laws that make it illegal for anyone else to enter your market 5. Buy yacht

ken 7y ago

> You realize $7 an hour is $95,000 a year in 2019 cash? That's assuming you get 40 hours a week of work.