The End of Labor - Morgan Stanley 's Chief Economist

[Left Below]

Stephen Roach-

"America’s once mighty job machine is struggling as never before. The combination of subpar job creation and real wage stagnation puts extraordinary pressure on the income-generating capacity of the world’s most aggressive consumer. Of course, you’d never know that from the spin that followed the release of the latest monthly labor market surveys of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. From Washington to Wall Street, the verdict was nearly unanimous -- all is fine on the US labor market front. Nothing could be further from the truth."

and-

"According to Federal Reserve estimates, the current pace of home equity extraction was around $600 billion in 2005 -- more than enough to compensate for the $335 billion shortfall of real labor income generation noted above."

http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20060109-mon.html#anchor0

Americans are pulling equity out of their homes in otder to stay afloat. The darkest days are ahead.

[marmar]

1. Powerful and scary...

I agree with you. It's going to get quite ugly.

:scared:

[AX10]

2. Morgan Stanley is well respected.

So is Roach. This is bad news indeed.

[TexasBushwhacker]

10. Well respected and not exactly left wing

Not that they are any worse than any of the big investment firms, but this is brutally honest stuff, from an industry that isn't always forthcoming.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Honest Abe Sez...

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
- Abraham Lincoln

Time for the revolution, ladies and gentlemen.

[juliana24]

5. Unions are dying in this county, and the people cant see the end of labor?

[salin]

6. Sad effect of endless propoganda

from the reagan era on. Believe the myths of rightwing supply side economics and the promise of something better - and ignore one's own personal economic reality as if it is unique... until the pain gets too hard to keep rectifying as 'unique to me'. Happened at the tail end of the Reagan Bush years, and is starting to happen again now. All of the statements of how great the economy is via political echo chambers gets to hard to rectify with individual realities - esp when it becomes more clear that it 'isn't just me'. Sadly, folks seem to be awakening after so many shifts have happened - that it becomes harder and harder not to wonder... is it too late?

Btw, welcome to DU!

[juliana24]

8. Thanks for the welcome, salin!

[PretzelWarrior]

4. this is powerful stuff. I fear we are in for a "great tribulation"

monetarily speaking and this will lead to more woes such as crime, more homelessness, greater untreated disease...

FUCKING BUSH has helped shepherd in a 3rd world economy in 5 short years of disastrous fiscal policies

[DKStreet]

7. The American worker is obsolete

The writing has been on the wall for a long time, the jobs that are being created are mostly part-time low wage service economy such as fast food.

Dark days ahead indeed.

[Left Below]

9. If you're over 35 and still in debt, the odds are that you will

never escape your financial landlords. After a $100 million lobbyist campaign, the merchant credit card industry has managed to secure your debt via your home in the perversely titled "Consumer Protection Act".

Every man, woman and child in the US has accrued $7000 in debt for the Iraqi War alone. Social Services will be scaled back in order to make way for the extension of the Bush Tax Cut.

Is it any wonder that the Tax Cut is priority number one? No politician will ever run on a tax hike in order to save entitlements - even to save the former sacred cow - Social Security, so it too must be eventually slaughtered.

If the Senate Dems had any balls, they would tie the Bush crowd in knots with an Alito filibuster and hope that somehow the American electorate could open one eye this fall and find the ballot box.

After November it may be too late.

[tom_paine]

12. Already too late, most likely

The instruments of Totalitarianism not only have a strong foundational frame of tyranny that requires not a passing of new laws, but a simple change of attitude by the Imperial Family.

Our voting system is untrustworthy, and rigged a hundred ways, legal, semi-legal, and illegal. Our media largely bullied into silence or celebrity-ed into irrelevance of corporate chatter.

The Constitution is now just another piece of paper, most of it's strings cut, checks and balances laughably weak. Respected by almost no one in the Bueshevik Party, except as window-dressing and to keep the serfs in line, still believing we are free (and we still are, sort of).

My belief that Free America can be restored: 20%.

[katty]

11. saw this yesterday-thanks for posting/reality bites