Real income is rising, BTW. It's only real wages (i.e. income excluding benefits) in the US which have not due to a shift of comp from wages to non-wage benefits (the total is also rising).
Pitting third world workers against first world workers isn't good for either of them in the long run.
The same threat that hangs over US workers (we will offshore your job if you unionize and demand higher wages) actually hangs over 3rd world workers too (we will reshore your job if you unionize and demand higher wage).
It's a win/win situation for private equity though.
> It's true that the wealthy Americans who formerly collected rents
Wages are rents now are they? That's doubleplus good doublethink.
>Real income is rising
Median incomes are in decline.
>shift of comp from wages to non-wage benefits
...if you do some creative accounting on healthcare costs. Theoretically you might be getting $150,000 worth of benefits if your company insurance pays for your appendectomy. You and I both know that those absurd prices only really apply to the uninsured.
I'm born to the middle class in Norway. I have done little productive with my life and yet I enjoy better personal financials than 95% of the world's working population. After I'm done with my education I could go into unemployment and be even better off. All because of where I was born. I'm just collecting on the rest of the world's wealth because... Norwegian passport. I am clearly collecting rent.
>Pitting third world workers against first world workers isn't good for either of them in the long run.
>The same threat that hangs over US workers (we will offshore your job if you unionize and demand higher wages) actually hangs over 3rd world workers too (we will reshore your job if you unionize and demand higher wage).
Unionisation's purpose is to increase workers' bargaining power and thus change the wealth distribution in favour of workers. 3rd world workers' problem is that there isn't all that much wealth to be redistributed. 3rd world workers have more to gain from the industrialization of their countries than from unionisation. Your emphasis on the different factors is way off. Eventually we will need international unions to deal with mobile multinationals, though, but it doesn't make sense as long as the income inequalities across borders are as high as they are.
As for income (not wages, which is a subse of income), data is easily googleable.
http://m.research.stlouisfed.org/fred/series.php?sid=COMPRNF...
The rent is not 90k in that case. The rent is negative, in favor of the US; the US economy has benefited most other countries far more than those countries have benefited it. Most of the world gets a vast free rider benefit from what the US economy accomplished in the last ~140 years.
The fact that the US benefits most other countries a lot (primarily due to trade) doesn't mean that anyone collects a rent.
Oh really. What is the price delta between a logically-impossible perfectly competitive market and the current labor market?
>Only part of their wage is rent - if deepika earns 10k rs/month and Danielle earns 100k rs, the rent is 90k.
Assuming deepika and Danielle are the same person.
None of this changes the conclusion that Deepika (a real person and a friend of mine, albeit not named deepika) has escaped poverty thanks to her job at a call center. Based on our previous conversations I know you dont consider her as valuable as a hypothetical american (ugh, dirty foreigners with animal gods and spicy foods), but that's simply a normative difference.
Most labor off-shoring from the US has not gone to corrupt countries (if we're talking about corrupt being Sudan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Somalia, etc).
Most of it has gone to India, Mexico, China, Philippines, Vietnam, etc. Rising, former third world nations. US companies obviously don't like to off-shore to countries like Sudan because those countries are neither safe nor stable for investment or operations. It does a company no good to build a factory in Somalia if it's just going to be arbitrarily nationalized or destroyed.
The ones you mention have all problems with corruption, to the point that as a Westerner doing business there you have to be aware of it.
Certain parts and certain businesses are worse off than others, of course, and for example the textile industry which is probably the most discussed and studied, have had huge problems with everything from organized crime to outright slave labor.
A general statement that off-shoring helps poor people is simply too easy to find counter examples to.
b) If you have a private equity investor stomping around your startup, it's because you solicited their investment. If you didn't want it, don't take the money. Simple.
b) So you're saying founders have a choice between accepting bullying or being starved of funding? Perhaps that's not the positive argument for PE it might appear to be.
The reality is that PE culture vampirises and kills real businesses and real affluence. It's only investment in the most toxic and predatory sense.
I will assume what is being referred to here, is LBO or more aggressive acquisition type firms like Bain.
The parent is right however, if Bain comes knocking on your private business, it's up to you as to whether you take their money. They do not use force to make you take their money or terms. I don't think the parent is making an argument in favor of these companies being saints, rather, that they function on a voluntary basis.
Are these good things? Is it a good thing when a private equity investor starts stomping around your startup demanding you treat your hires like exploitable assets and not like friends or colleagues you respect?