From: alpinist@eskimo.celestial.com (David Butler)
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: government still at large (was Re: FDA still at large)
Date: 30 Jul 92 18:12:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: eskimo.1992Jul30.181205.1659
Organization: =>ESKIMO NORTH (206) 367-3837 SEATTLE, WA.<=

In article <1992Jul29.232202.1406@Happy-Man.com> Joshua_Putnam@happy-man.com writes:
>Except that it determines whether the living standard of this bottom
>90% increased, decreased, or remained the same.  If I have a choice
>between 3/4 of 1000 loaves of bread and 2/3 of 2000 loaves of bread,
>do you really believe I am better off with 750 loaves than with 1,333
>loaves?

>>The majority of people still have lost a large percentage of
>>the goods and services in this country which is what the value represents.

>So far we are in perfect agreement: the bottom 90% of the population
>have a smaller share of the pie than in 1981 when Reagan took office.
>But it puzzles me that you consider the size of the pie irrelevant.
>If the size of the pie, the number of loaves of bread, the total
>wealth in the country, the value of the nation's assets, or however
>you want to quantify wealth, increased by 15% or more, the 90% still
>have more than they did before.

  The problem in perception that we are having is that you are
perceiving that the increase in GNP means an increase in products.
With your loaves of bread analogy.  The increase in GNP only means that
the price of bread went up.  We didn't go from having 750 loaves to
now having 1333 loaves, we went from having bread cost $.75 a loaf to
costing $1.33 a loaf.  There still are only 750 loaves.  The value of
what we are producing went up (the cost) but the amount stayed the
same (we are certainly not producing over 15% more goods than we were
a decade ago it just costs over 15% more)  So its not the size of the
pie I consider irrelevant it is the cost of the pie.  There is still
no more pie to go around.

>>Production as a whole hasn't increased in this country.  Possibly the
>>opposite.

>Strange -- do you have any statistics demonstrating this declining GNP
>or GDP?  Apart from the slow growth during the Bush administration,
>the last decade has seen enormous economic growth.  That's why I find
>it hard to believe that the value of the nation's assets has increased
>less than 15% over the last decade.  

   The economic growth in this country is mostly just in terms of money
not in goods and services.  The only reason average families are better
off than they were a little over a decade ago is that now most families
have two wage earners when then they only had one.  Most of the actual
increase in wealth (buying power) has only occured in the ranks of the
upper echelons.  The average working wage has dropped (and actual production
jobs have decreased).  Two examples of the fact that we are producing
less (despite the amount of money floating around) is the larger numbers
of people unemployed, homeless, and in low wage jobs than 12 or 13 years
ago.  (And the Administration did its best though to redefine the figures
to make those categories look smaller than they really are.)  There is
also the fact that we are continuously importing goods from other countries
at a greater and greater trade imbalance, implying that we are producing
less within this country.  And while the number of dollars goes up and
the cost of goods goes up, the dollar does not rise in relation to foreign
currency at such a rate as to say we are gainin great increases in buying
power.  (Except in rare instances such as the collapse of communist
countries - but certainly not in relation to large manufacturers such as
Germany and Japan)


-- 
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* Dave                          *               The Alpinist               *
* alpinist@eskimo.celestial.com *            DARE to be stoopid!           *
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