QDC,
You see what you want to see and what is not reality.
Yes incomes have not kept up with costs, on the flip side of that the wage paid for a full time employee is about 75% of what the company actually pays for that employee.
So let's take your Stepfather and his $4 an hour making a cabinnet.
So let
s just put some numbers to that cabinet. Let's say it take your Stepfather 2 hours to make the cabinet. and the lumber, nails, stain, hardware and varnish are $10 and shippjng another $2 for So far the costs are $20 for the cabinet. and let's take the total taxes at 25% so $5 for local, state, and federal taxes. and the profit is going to be 25% or $5 To keep thing rounded so using the formula the price = Costs + Profit + taxes = $30. At the time your stepfather needed to beable to cut the wood while minimizing waste of the wood, fit the pieces together, hide the nales and make the product pretty so people will want it.
Let's fast forward to to day.
Paying the carpenter who loads lumber into a machine that measures, cuts, and then he loads the cut wood into a JIG that then nails the peices together. It gets sanded, primes, stained, and varnished all in a paint booth and the worker with a machine can now make 20 of the same units an hour. taxes are up to 50% In San Francisco the cabinet shops have California EPA people there fining any time they open a container of varnish or stain for the VOC content adding another $10 a unit in fines.
Now the wages your step father was paid in the 60's was a wage, now you have fica contributions aof 2:1, vacation pay, sick pay, 401K contributions, Medical insurance (even if it is partial) So that $12 an hour is actually $16 an hour with all the hidden costs that the company pays in the form of hidden taxes and benefits. And yes taxes have gone up you are now paying about 50% in taxes, not to mention the added taxes on fuel and power. That doubleing in taxes has effected prices, and material costs but not labor.
Costs have gone way up, and the skill level needed to make the same product have gone down, lower skills less money. and profits have gone down since the 60's by about 20%. So if it was 25% in the 60's it is now 20% due to automation and transprotation that have increased compitition. Taht compitition has kept prices lower.
But why should logic effect your thinking.
And yes the higher the taxes on all levels the less buying power you have for two reasons. One is it drives up prices, two is it takes money out of your pocket directly and little tax increases like a 1/2 percent on a slaes tax, a percent on your income tax all transfer $ from you to government making your salary worth less and lowers your buying power. And the less you make the more impact a small tax increase will effect you. So the Democrats that keep saying we need to rasie taxes to help the poor are only hurting them the most. But I think that is the goal. Remember we have a govenment that needs poor people to help them and grow their budget and cubical kingdoms.
I also notice you did not comment on where the $2500 went that your stepfather gained when he bought a reposesed house? Did you live cheap at the cost of a widow? an old couple? Or someone that lost their job due to government introvention? It could not have been the evil bank as they did not get the $2500. Your stepfather did. But that should not matter to you.all you care about is thinking that any and every company is evil and government is good and more taxes are better for the poor when all it does is hurt them by pushing jobs off shore, by shrinking the economy, by making wants further and further out of reach as you make the needs cost more.
But logic has never stopped the liberals from pushing their adgenda to ruin the economy so they can create a socialist paradise and throw away the constitution and the bill of rights.
