Manufacturing jobs stagnated because of pressure from foreign suppliers (let's assume).
Pink collar service jobs stagnated because of lack of scope for productivity improvements.
White collar service jobs in "highly skilled" sectors did well because their skills were in demand.
However, if you look at the paper I just cited in my most recent reply in the original thread from the Levy Institute you will see that most of the gains in wealth are due to the rise in value of the stock market and other assets owned by the top 1%. In addition there has been a large increase in the compensation paid to top executives in most firms. This group is too small to represent the total cause of the wealth distortion. 5000 companies with five key executives each, perhaps.
I think that international pressure may be a factor, but more important is the loss of labor power. Unions are no longer a serious factor and labor laws have been gutted so they are no longer effective. It would be instructive if someone could compare the situation in the industrialized EU countries where unions are still strong.
So I think the shift is due to a loss of labor strength and a gaming of the capital structure by the financial services sector. Read about the run up to 1929 to see where that leads. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
If Roy stocks dairy products for a living, his income is not going to change much, aside from the usually-automatic (computerized) raise he receives on, typically, an annual or twice-annual basis. So the result of the goods being cheaper to produce in Asia translates to (1)(a) lower prices for consumers, (1)(b) higher demand due to the change in purchasing power of those consumers, (2) large increases in profits for firms with some market power -- transferred to investors and executives (who are also investors, at least in good companies) -- and (3) little change in the income of service-sector employees at the lower level.
Again, I could be completely wrong. But I have to believe that the traditional mechanics of the economy have been changed greatly by the evolution of the past few decades. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
