The Great Debate UK
Superstar economics: It’s all showbiz now
By Laurence Copeland. The opinions expressed are his own.
It seems barely a week goes by without another shock report about the ever-widening gap between those at the top of the earnings distribution and the rest of us. The facts are by now well-established. Throughout the Western world, but most noticeably in Britain and America, the earnings of the top one or two percent are accelerating into the stratosphere, leaving the middle class a long way behind, and the working class completely out of sight. How can one explain this global phenomenon?
Academic economics seems to be taking a surprisingly long time to reach a definitive answer, but I suspect there will turn out to be two long term trends at work here.
First, globalisation has doubled or tripled the supply of unskilled and semi-skilled labour. As long as China remained locked in Maoist isolation and the Indian economy had to carry the full burden of the Licence Raj, their respective workforces were shut off from the global labour market. The fact that products could theoretically be manufactured far cheaper in those countries was unimportant, because in practice Western firms could never take advantage of their rock-bottom labour costs.
Now that they have opened up and it is possible to outsource manufacturing to China and the paperwork to India, there is less and less left for our workers and middle-managers to do – unless, of course, they are willing to work for more competitive (i.e. lower) wages.
Inflation impoverishes Britons the easy way
– The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
Critics might say the UK’s inflation target is just for fun. Consumer prices were 3.4 percent higher in March than in the previous year, well above the 2 percent target rate, but the Bank of England will do nothing at all.
If the central bank were serious, shouldn’t it raise interest rates and crush every bit of life out of the UK economy? Not really. The UK has above target inflation because world oil prices are high, the pound is low and VAT is up. But it has inflation for poorer and richer.
Worst is over for U.S. job losses
-Kurt Karl is chief U.S. economist for Swiss Re. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Ongoing job losses pose a severe threat to the nascent U.S. recovery because they weaken consumers confidence and their ability to spend.
from The Great Debate:
An equal opportunity recession?
James H. Carr is chief operating officer for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington-based association that promote access to basic banking services for America’s working families. He is a member of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development’s “Experts of Color Clearinghouse”. The views expressed are his own.
The U.S. economy is unraveling at a pace not seen in decades. The more than 650,000 jobs lost last month has contributed to a growing concern that the unemployment rate could rise to 10 percent or higher before the economy rebounds. At the center of the economy’s instability is a foreclosure crisis that has claimed 3.5 million homes in the last year alone, and threatens the loss of an additional 8 to 10 million homes to foreclosure over the next five years.
