- Alan Greenspan says our skilled workers are paid too
much -- and recommends we open a "signficant window of skilled workers"
to come to the US and eliminate the remaining concentration of higher pay
for skilled jobs in the American workforce -- equalizing wages with the
unskilled workers. Greenspan would apparently like to see doctors
and technicians make what burger flippers are making.
-
- From:
- News@JobDestruction.info
- Subject: Greenspan's solution for income inequalities
-
-
- JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1660
- 3-21-7
-
- Alan Greenspan is worried about income inequalities in
the U.S. But before you jump up with joy that Greenspan is finally speaking
out against the skyrocketing salaries of CEOs, hold your celebrations for
another time!
-
- Greenspan's big worry is that "skilled workers"
get paid way too much compared to the rest of our population. Judging by
Greenspan's comments, when he talks about "skilled workers" he
isn't talking about CEOs and other assorted corporate fat-cats that earn
multi-million dollar salaries -- he is probably talking about you.
-
- Give Greenspan credit for one thing -- he not only identifies
our national problems he offers 'solutions'! Of course, if you happen to
be a skilled worker, Greenspan's solution won't sound too appealing. The
hero of the corporatocrats and plutocrats wants to distribute your income
into the hands of needy billionaires by using H-1B visa 'skilled workers'
to knock you off your haughty middle-class pedestal. Clever,
huh?
-
-
- "Our skilled wages are higher than anywhere in the
world," he said. "If we open up a significant window for skilled
workers, that would suppress the skilled-wage level and end the concentration
of income."
-
- Greenspan sure understands how the H-1B visa works. Almost
every politician says that H-1Bs aren't cheaper because these imported
skilled workers get paid prevailing wages.
-
- Good ol' Greenspan cuts right through all the B.S.
and gives the honest reason why employers love H-1B foreign workers --
THEY ARE CHEAPER! He even explains why they are cheaper -- it's due to
an effect that almost no politician, reporter, or union leader seems to
acknowledge -- the law of supply and demand in the labor market.
-
- "The former Fed chief said that increasing the number
of immigrants with sought-after skills would increase the labor supply
of these workers in the United States and hold down the wage gains of all
workers with these skills."
-
- For those of you who are activists who speak to the media,
politicians, or pundits, I highly recommend quoting Alan Greenspan whenever
somebody says that H-1B isn't used to cut salaries.
-
-
- __________
-
-
- Greenspan - Let More Skilled Immigrants In
- By Bloomberg News
- 3-14-7
-
- WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan
said allowing more skilled immigrants to work in the United States would
help keep the income gap from widening.
-
- Inequality of incomes is the "critical area where
capitalist systems are most vulnerable," Greenspan said yesterday
in Washington at a conference on maintaining the competitiveness of US
capital markets convened by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "You
cannot have a system that we have unless the people who participate in
it believe it is just."
-
- Allowing more skilled workers into the country would
bring down the salaries of top earners in the United States, easing tensions
over the mounting wage gap, Greenspan said.
-
- "Our skilled wages are higher than anywhere in the
world," he said. "If we open up a significant window for skilled
workers, that would suppress the skilled-wage level and end the concentration
of income."
-
- Income inequality has risen in the past three decades.
-
- Kathleen Newland, director of the Migration Policy Institute,
a Washington think tank, said she was skeptical of Greenspan's proposal.
"In theory, increased skilled immigration should help contain wage
rises at higher levels, but there is little empirical evidence," she
said. "If you want to reduce political concern, it would be better
to deal with the problem by helping to raise the wages of the lowest earners,
by helping to improve productivity and raising the minimum wage."
-
- ________
-
- Greenspan's Inequality Fix: Free Trade For Lawyers And
Doctors
-
- Tell you one thing, Alan Greenspan is way more fun now
that he's no longer helming the Federal Reserve. One day he's telling rapt
audiences that a recession is possible -- helping roil global financial
markets in the process -- the next day he's actually giving odds. (About
33 percent, if you're keeping track.)
-
- Then there are these comments on solving perceived income
inequality offered up by The Maestro at the Treasury Department's competitiveness
conference earlier this week. Greenspan's solution to America's wage disparity
is thus: "Our skilled wages are higher than anywhere in the world.
If we open up a significant window for skilled workers, that would suppress
the skilled-wage level and end the concentration of income."
-
- Now this may seem like a wacky solution, but if you are
a free trader, it makes sense. After all, less-skilled and less-educated
workers, primarily in the manufacturing industry, have been subjected to
direct competition with lower-paid workers overseas. In return, the United
States has received less-expensive goods at big box stores like Wal-Mart
and Costco. (Eventually, of course, displaced workers should be retrained
for higher-value-added work.)
-
- Likewise, liberalizing trade for professional services
-- such as medicine and law -- might not only suppress the dramatic income
increases in those professions, as Greenspan suggests, but also make them
more affordable. As economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for
Economic and Policy Research, writes in The Conservative Nanny State:
-
- "Trade pacts have done little or nothing to remove
the extensive licensing and professional barriers that prevent foreign
doctors, lawyers, economists, and journalists from competing on an equal
footing with their counterparts in the United States.
-
- If U.S. trade negotiators approached the highly
paid professions in the same way they approached the aut
-
- industry ... they would also be asking the trade negotiators
from Mexico,
-
- India, or China what obstacles prevent them from sending
hundreds of thousands of highly skilled professionals to the United States
... In fact, the exact opposite happens. In 1997, Congress tightened the
licensing rules for foreign doctors entering the country because of concerns
by the American Medical Association and other doctors' organizations that
the inflow of foreign doctors was driving down their salaries. As a result,
the number of foreign medical residents allowed to enter the country each
year was cut in half.
-
- If free trade in physicians brought doctors' salaries
down to European levels, the savings would be close to $100,000 per doctor,
approximately $80 billion a year. This is 10 times as large as standard
estimates of the gains from NAFTA."
-
- And just think of the productivity benefits to the American
economy if all those generations of future lawyers instead became engineers
or industrial designers or some such. Of course, not everyone is thrilled
with this possible solution. Here is what Mark Krikorian, executive director
of the Center for Immigration Studies had to say about Greenspan's solution
in The Corner, National Review magazine's group blog today:
-
- "So, what's [Greenspan's] solution? Flood the skilled
labor market with immigrants! You see, since immigration lowers wages,
massive importation of skilled workers would drive down their wages and,
presto, no more income gap! In his words ... Anyone want to run for office
on that platform? Anyone? Anyone? Instead, how about reducing inequality
by cutting immigration overall, so we stop flooding the low-skilled labor
market, and let blue-collar wages increase? Think that would be a better
way to shore up political support for capitalism among the poor?"
-
- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/capitaz
- lcommerce/070316/greenspans_inequ
ality_fix_free_1.htm
-
-
- The Dismal Science
- By Mark Krikorian
-
- Now here's something only an economist could come up
with. Alan Greenspan said at a conference this week that high levels of
economic inequality are political problem, and he's right: "You cannot
have a system that we have unless the people who participate in it believe
it is just." Too much concentration of income at the top undermines
political support for the market and thus strengthens the hand of the socialists
-- er, the Democrats.
-
- So, what's his solution? Flood the skilled labor market
with immigrants! You see, since immigration lowers wages, massive importation
of skilled workers would drive down their wages and, presto, no more income
gap! In his words: "Our skilled wages are higher than anywhere in
the world. If we open up a significant window for skilled workers, that
would suppress the skilled-wage level and end the concentration of income."
-
- Anyone want to run for office on that platform? Anyone?
Anyone? Instead, how about reducing inequality by cutting immigration overall,
so we stop flooding the low-skilled labor market, and let blue-collar wages
increase? Think that would be a better way to shore up political support
for capitalism among the poor?
-
- http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjM2ZDk
1NGFjNTg5YjNiNzljOGE3YTM1N zU5MWM2M2Q=
-
-
- Greenspan Talks And Markets Don't Tumble
- http://www.chippewa.com/articles/2007/03/14/news/business/biz980h.txt
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