Placing Blame for Middle-Class Doldrums - NYTimes.com by David Leonhardt

2012-08-22

6:06 p.m. | Updated to correct description of the group answering a question.

We are in the midst of examining the major causes of the income slowdown over the past decade and beyond. As it happens, the Pew Research Center asked a more pointed version of this question in its recent poll on the middle class: Who's at fault?To the 85 percent of self-described middle-class respondents who said that middle-class families were having a harder time maintaining their standard of living, Pew then asked how much people blamed each of the following groups "for the difficulties the middle class has faced in the past 10 years." The possible answers were: a lot; a little; not at all; don't know.

Below are the percentages for each group that answered "a lot":

Congress: 62%
Banks and financial institutions: 54%
Large corporations: 47%
The Bush administration: 44%
Foreign competition: 39%
The Obama administration: 34%
Middle-class people themselves: 8%

Based on a subsample of 1,093 from a survey of 2,508 adults living in the United States, from July 16 to 26, 2012. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 22, 2012

An earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to the group answering a question in the Pew survey. It was 85 percent of self-described middle-class respondents -- not 85 percent of all respondents -- who said middle-class families were having a harder time maintaining their standard of living, and were then asked a follow-up question.

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Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/placing-blame-for-middle-class-doldrums/?pagewanted=print

Globalization and the Income Slowdown - NYTimes.com by David Leonhardt

2012-08-21

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic offers a thoughtful response to our list of 14 potential causes of the great American income slowdown:

When I write about income stagnation apart from the Great Recession, I typically rely on a trio of explanations: Globalization, technology, and health care.
Competition drives down costs. Shoppers understand this, intuitively. One reason that flat-screen TV prices have fallen so much in the last ten years is that so many electronics companies have gotten efficient at making them. Similarly, competition for jobs in tradable goods and services -- manufacturing that could be done in China; retail that's simpler on Amazon -- competes down the price employers pay workers in those industries. It makes many workers borderline-replaceable and nothing borderline-replaceable is expensive. Those forces drove down wages, and employer-side health care costs gnawed at the rest of it.

In my exchanges with economists so far, globalization is certainly among the most commonly cited factors for the income slowdown. American workers today face vastly more competition from foreign workers -- especially foreign workers who earn much less money than the typical American -- compared with past decades.

Benjamin Friedman - a Harvard professor and the author of the ambitious economic history "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth" - told me that he would put global competition and technological change at the top of his list of causes, with the education slowdown (which, he noted, interacted with technological change) and cultural norms not far behind. Mr. Friedman pointed to Lucian Bebchuk's research on soaring executive pay as an example of how much norms had changed.

In his next bucket of importance, Mr. Friedman listed health costs, an innovation plateau, the minimum wage, family structure and immigration. Immigration, he said, largely affects workers at the bottom end of the income spectrum.

Stephen S. Roach, the longtime Morgan Stanley economist and China expert who now teaches at Yale, offered a list with some strong similarities to Mr. Friedman's. Mr. Roach put global competition, the educational slowdown and the innovation plateau at the top of his list, followed by automation, deregulation, rising health costs, immigration and the falling minimum wage.

He also said that the supply chain explosion -- "rapid growth of integrated global production platforms that squeeze labor income at all stages of the production process" -- deserved a place on the list. I'd probably argue that the supply chain was a subset of either globalization or automation, but I see why someone else might list it as a separate factor.

Mr. Thompson, in his post, included a chart -- of employment by sector -- that underscored the importance of globalization:

Employment by Industry Since 1939

As he notes, only one line defies the business cycle and just keeps going up: education and health care. He writes:

What do those sectors have in common? They're all local. You can't send them to Korea. As Michael Spence has explained, corporations have gotten so good at "creating and managing global supply chains" that large companies no longer grow much in the United States. They expand abroad. As a result, the vast majority (more than 97%, Spence says!) of job creation now happens in so-called nontradable sectors -- those that exist outside of the global supply chain -- that are often low-profit-margin businesses, like a hospital, or else not even businesses at all, like a school or mayor's office.

This chart measures jobs, not incomes. I think it's possible that parts of other sectors have delivered big average pay gains (most likely, the high-skill jobs) even if overall employment in those sectors hasn't grown as fast as in education and health care. I also wonder how much technological innovation explains these lines: education and health care are notoriously inefficient sectors. But no matter how you look at the picture, globalization seems to be one of the biggest changes that has accompanied the great American income slowdown.

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Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/globalization-and-the-income-slowdown/?pagewanted=print

Globalization and the Income Slowdown - NYTimes.com by David Leonhardt

2012-08-21

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic offers a thoughtful response to our list of 14 potential causes of the great American income slowdown:

When I write about income stagnation apart from the Great Recession, I typically rely on a trio of explanations: Globalization, technology, and health care.
Competition drives down costs. Shoppers understand this, intuitively. One reason that flat-screen TV prices have fallen so much in the last ten years is that so many electronics companies have gotten efficient at making them. Similarly, competition for jobs in tradable goods and services -- manufacturing that could be done in China; retail that's simpler on Amazon -- competes down the price employers pay workers in those industries. It makes many workers borderline-replaceable and nothing borderline-replaceable is expensive. Those forces drove down wages, and employer-side health care costs gnawed at the rest of it.

In my exchanges with economists so far, globalization is certainly among the most commonly cited factors for the income slowdown. American workers today face vastly more competition from foreign workers -- especially foreign workers who earn much less money than the typical American -- compared with past decades.

Benjamin Friedman - a Harvard professor and the author of the ambitious economic history "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth" - told me that he would put global competition and technological change at the top of his list of causes, with the education slowdown (which, he noted, interacted with technological change) and cultural norms not far behind. Mr. Friedman pointed to Lucian Bebchuk's research on soaring executive pay as an example of how much norms had changed.

In his next bucket of importance, Mr. Friedman listed health costs, an innovation plateau, the minimum wage, family structure and immigration. Immigration, he said, largely affects workers at the bottom end of the income spectrum.

Stephen S. Roach, the longtime Morgan Stanley economist and China expert who now teaches at Yale, offered a list with some strong similarities to Mr. Friedman's. Mr. Roach put global competition, the educational slowdown and the innovation plateau at the top of his list, followed by automation, deregulation, rising health costs, immigration and the falling minimum wage.

He also said that the supply chain explosion -- "rapid growth of integrated global production platforms that squeeze labor income at all stages of the production process" -- deserved a place on the list. I'd probably argue that the supply chain was a subset of either globalization or automation, but I see why someone else might list it as a separate factor.

Mr. Thompson, in his post, included a chart -- of employment by sector -- that underscored the importance of globalization:

Employment by Industry Since 1939

As he notes, only one line defies the business cycle and just keeps going up: education and health care. He writes:

What do those sectors have in common? They're all local. You can't send them to Korea. As Michael Spence has explained, corporations have gotten so good at "creating and managing global supply chains" that large companies no longer grow much in the United States. They expand abroad. As a result, the vast majority (more than 97%, Spence says!) of job creation now happens in so-called nontradable sectors -- those that exist outside of the global supply chain -- that are often low-profit-margin businesses, like a hospital, or else not even businesses at all, like a school or mayor's office.

This chart measures jobs, not incomes. I think it's possible that parts of other sectors have delivered big average pay gains (most likely, the high-skill jobs) even if overall employment in those sectors hasn't grown as fast as in education and health care. I also wonder how much technological innovation explains these lines: education and health care are notoriously inefficient sectors. But no matter how you look at the picture, globalization seems to be one of the biggest changes that has accompanied the great American income slowdown.

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Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/globalization-and-the-income-slowdown/?pagewanted=print

The 14 Potential Causes of the Income Slump - NYTimes.com by David Leonhardt

2012-08-20

Why has median household income just endured its worst 12-year stretch since the Great Depression?

The immediate answer to that question is that economic growth has slowed and inequality has risen. The pie isn't growing very quickly, and the few new slices are going to a disproportionately small portion of the population.

But that answer is really just an accounting answer. The more important questions are why economic growth has slowed and why inequality has risen - not just over the last 12 years but, less severely, since the early 1970s as well.

With help from economists and from Times readers who commented on our first post in the Agenda series, I compiled a list of 14 potential major causes for the income slowdown. In coming days, I'll be writing posts about what economists see as the major causes.

For now, we invite you to weigh in: for each of the 14 causes, listed alphabetically below, let us know if you think it's very important, modestly important, or only marginally or not important. If you want to skip some potential causes because you're not sure, you can do that too. We also invite you to use Twitter to send your answers to #TheAgenda.

Fill out my online form.

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Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/the-14-potential-causes-of-the-income-slump/?pagewanted=print

Demographic Changes a Key Factor in Slowing Economic Growth - NYTimes.com by David Leonhardt

2012-08-17

Economic growth in the United States has been disappointing for more than a decade now. Some of the reasons are complex and hotly debated, and will be the subject of a series of posts here starting next week. But one of the reasons is not mysterious at all. It simply reflects demographic changes.

The share of Americans who are working age - old enough to be out of school but young enough not to be retired - is no longer growing. Only about 53 percent of the population was between the ages of 25 and 64 last year, unchanged from 2007 and up only slightly from 52 percent in 1997. Between 1967 and 1997, by contrast, the share grew 8 percentage points, to 52 percent from 44 percent. As more baby boomers retire, the share will begin to fall.

Fewer people of working age means, obviously enough, fewer workers. It also means fewer potential entrepreneurs creating new businesses that hire people.

And aging isn't the only demographic weight holding back the economy. For most of the 20th century, the share of women in the labor force was rising. It reached 60 percent in 1997, up from just 32 percent in 1948.

But the share isn't rising anymore. It fell below 60 percent in the 2001 recession, spent most of the last decade around 59 percent and, in the long aftermath of the financial crisis, was only 57.6 percent last month.

The same logic applies to the female trends as the overall population trends: absent an ever-growing flow of new workers, the economy will struggle to grow as quickly.

How important are these demographic trends to the great growth slowdown of the last 12 years?

The reason that the statistic known as productivity receives so much attention is because it measures economic growth while controlling for demographics. Productivity is simply average hourly output across the economy. It is not directly affected by how many people are working.

When you look at the productivity trends, they are not quite as grim as the economic growth trends. The growth rate has fallen sharply over the last decade but it is not at a 60-year low. The average annual growth of productivity over the last decade, 1.9 percent, is somewhat below the average rate of the last 60 years, 2.2 percent.

From the mid-1990s to the early part of last decade, by comparison, productivity was growing at its fastest rate since the 1960s. So the drop-off in the past decade has been sharp.

By extension, it seems clear that demographics are an important reason that the American economy has slowed but only one part of a much bigger story.

Our mission next week will be to dig into that story. We will begin exploring the causes of the slowdown in Americans' income growth, a result of both the slowdown in economic growth and a rise in inequality. Based on the hundreds of reader comments on our initial Agenda post and on follow-up conversations with economists, I came up with a list of 14 major potential causes.

We will post the list on Monday and invite readers to tell us which causes they believe are the most important. We'll also tell you what we are hearing about the list from a range of the country's top economists.

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Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/demographic-changes-a-key-factor-in-slowing-economic-growth/?pagewanted=print

港人孤身保釣 / 論盡中港台 by 岑逸飛

16 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

　　保衛釣魚島運動始於1970年，是由台灣、香港、中國大陸及海外華人為了回應釣魚島主權問題而發起的一系列民間運動。其活動包括遊行示威和登船出海到釣魚島海域等方式。

 

　　最早的保釣運動，應是1968年由張俊宏、陳鼓應等人在台灣創立的《大學》雜誌，為保釣發聲，曾刊登學者丘宏達的相關文章。到1970年，美國普林斯頓大學的台灣留學生開始組成「保釣行動委員會」，表示反對美日私相受授，一方面抨擊美國與日本，另一方面也要求台灣力爭主權。

 

　　1971年1 月，2000多名台灣及香港留美學生在聯合國總部外面示威，高呼保釣口號。兩周後，由香港教師和學生組成的「香港保釣行動委員會」，發動上街示威，指控美日勾結，其中該年7 月7日由香港專上學生聯會在維園發起示威，更演變成嚴重衝突，威利警司率領千多名警察，以近乎1比1比例，武力驅散示威者，為香港70年代學運揭開序幕。

 

　　中國大陸捲入保釣紛爭，始於1978年8月，中國與日本簽署《和平友好條約》，但日本右翼團體在政府默許下，於釣魚島修建直升機場，其後中國派出200多艘漁船到有關海域宣示主權，日本人終於放棄建機場計劃。當時鄧小平向日本表示，釣魚島主權問題可在日後慢慢解決。

 

　　保釣運動在日本引起不滿，兩岸政府則曾被指為打壓保釣運動。反而香港人對保釣運動一向有其光輝傳統，特別值得一提的是，在港英時代，香港保釣行動委員會的陳毓祥等5 人，於1996年9月26日在釣魚島海域跳海示威，其中陳毓祥遇溺身亡，他的逝世以及當時中國政府立場的過分克制，激發了港、台兩地的不滿。

 

　　近期釣魚島主權爭議又再升溫，日本由所謂「購島」到首相野田佳彥公開宣示，考慮出動自衛隊應對事態，而自衛隊隨即擬定「應對作戰計畫」。可惜兩岸政府的回應使人失望。台灣方面，仍由總統府聲稱台灣在釣魚台主權問題「一寸都不能讓步」云云。大陸方面，除了外交部發言人重申釣魚島是中國固有領土，始終未見領導人說過一句話，僅由半官方的《環球時報》發表社評，認同「釣魚島局勢嚴峻前所未有」而已。

 

　　今次8月15日的保釣行動，是因應上世紀30、40年代，日本發動侵略戰爭，給中國等亞洲國家帶來深重災難。67年前的8月15日，日本無條件投降，但是日本對這段不光彩歷史，並未深刻反省，每逢此日，一些日本政客到供奉甲級戰犯的靖國神社參拜，給亞洲人民的傷口撒鹽。

 

　　這次保釣行動，本來憧憬兩岸四地保釣船和保釣人士會師，到釣魚島海域宣示主權，向國際顯示中國人不分地域，一條心捍衛領土的決心。但是，在兩岸政府阻撓下，大陸和台灣的保釣船都缺席，只有香港保釣船「啟豐二號」孤身上路，對日本的海上保安廳船艦那會構成威脅﹖特首梁振英就事件表態，希望香港保釣人士能夠注意自身安全，順利安全返航，也不過是杞人憂天。 反而兩岸政府在釣魚島主權爭議的口硬手軟，日本朝野看在眼�，相信會竊竊失笑。

 

如何看待奧運醜聞 / 論盡中港台 by 岑逸飛

9 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT
　　今屆的倫敦奧運，中國選手捲入兩宗醜聞。一宗是16歲女泳選手葉詩文奪得兩面金牌，打破了女子400米混合泳的世界紀錄和200米混合泳的奧運會紀錄，卻捲入禁藥疑雲﹔另一宗是女子羽毛球雙打選手，其中一對中國羽毛球明星搭檔輸給非種子南韓選手，被指控「消極比賽」。

 

　　先說葉詩文事件。她最令人震驚的表現，在於其400米混合泳決賽最後100自由泳的速度，最後50米成績比男子400米混合泳金牌得主、美國人羅切特(Ryan Lochte)還要快0.17秒。

　　然而隨著葉詩文的奪金，一些西方媒體繼而出現慣性的質疑之聲。英國BBC直播游泳賽事的主持人克萊爾˙巴爾汀(Claire Balding)女士賽後即表示：「一個人突然能游出比自己最好成績快出很多的成績，這該有多少懷疑吧?」﹔而美國游泳教練約翰˙萊昂納多(Jone Leonard)在葉詩文400米混合泳奪冠後，也聲稱「葉詩文是在藥物的幫助下游出此項成績，可以和男選手一起比賽」。

 

　　不是說「沒有調查就沒有發言權」嗎﹖這種指控須有真憑實據，否則便存有兩種歧視，一是種族歧視，二是性別歧視。結果葉詩文通過了藥檢，證明是清白的。國際泳聯隨即發表聲明，指葉詩文的禁藥疑雲沒有事實依據。然而儘管已有權威機構證實葉詩文的清白，萊昂納多仍堅稱葉詩文的表現「異常」。澳大利亞廣播公司甚至認為，目前的檢測結果不足以證明葉詩文未服用禁藥，很可能是現有檢測儀器和技術手段不夠先進云云。西方人對中國選手的偏見以至負面評論到此一地步，實屬可悲。

 

　　再看羽毛球雙打選手的「消極比賽」醜聞。甚麼是「消極比賽」﹖這是指為了避開提前與本方隊友在淘汰賽相遇，而選擇在小組賽故意輸球，從而創造有利條件。而在今屆倫敦奧運會羽毛球比賽，有八名選手因「消極比賽」而被取消參賽資格，其中一對是中國隊女雙打選手于洋/王曉理，她們對南韓組合的鄭景銀/金荷娜，在場上的表現，既缺乏鬥志，更沒有求勝欲，擊球不是下網，就是出界，本是奧運級別的對決，水準卻還不如業餘選手。由於失誤頻頻，比賽時體育館內噓聲四起。

 

　　于洋/王曉理的「消極比賽」，在於中國另外一對組合田卿/趙芸蕾，早前在另一小組賽最後一輪意外輸給一對丹麥組合，只能以小組第二名出線，因此一旦于洋/王曉理在自己的小組以頭名出線八強，兩對中國組合就將被分在一個半區，提前在半決賽相遇，會妨礙中國奪得更多金牌。雖然誰都不願意在八強和強勢組合交手，然而未能竭盡全力去贏得比賽的勝利，顯然有違體育精神，也失去奧運的意義。

 

　　事實上，所謂體育就是競爭。如果失去了求勝心，則比賽也沒意思，所以絕不容許運動員有「消極比賽」的惡劣行為。韓國教練已指出，消極比賽是中國選手開的先河，南韓選手只是戰略性地效法，雖然不少南韓網民加以駁斥，謂即使中國羽毛球代表隊有過失，南韓選手也無必要跟隨，然而始作俑者始終是中國選手，身為中國人也為此而感到汗顏。

 

A Slowdown in Growth, an Increase in Income Inequality - NYTimes.com by David Leonhardt

2012-08-06

The income stagnation of the last decade stems, in the simplest terms, from two factors: a slowdown in economic growth and a rise in inequality, which has concentrated the economy's modest gains among a small share of the population. In this post, I want to look at both factors in a bit more detail.

The economy's recent struggles arguably began in late 2001, when a relatively mild recession ended and a new expansion began. The problem with this new recovery was that it wasn't especially strong. From the fourth quarter of 2001 through the fourth quarter of 2007 (when the financial crisis began), the economy grew at an average annual rate of only 2.7 percent. By comparison, the average annual growth rate of both the 1990s and 1980s expansions exceeded 3.5 percent.

This mediocre expansion was followed by the severe recession and weak recovery brought on by the financial crisis. The combined result is that, in recent years, the economy has posted its slowest 10-year average growth rates since the Commerce Department began keeping statistics in 1947:

In addition to slow growth, the bounty from the economy's growth has largely flowed to a small slice of the population: the affluent. Since 2000, no income group has done particularly well. Income in households that rely on wages has failed to keep pace with inflation, while in households that have large investment holdings the value of many of those holdings -- both real estate and stocks -- has fallen.

Over a longer term, though, the affluent have done extremely well. Since 1980, a household at the cutoff for the top 1/1,000th of earners -- making about $1.5 million in 2010 -- has received a pay increase of more than 100 percent, after adjusting for inflation. A household in the middle of the income distribution has received an inflation-adjusted raise of only 11 percent.

Related: Read all Agenda Posts

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Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/a-slowdown-in-growth-an-increase-in-income-inequality/?pagewanted=print

國民教育，疑慮重重 / 論盡中港台 by 岑逸飛

2 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

　　7月29日的香港遊行，在33度高溫下，主辦單位揚言有9萬人，警方則指有3萬2千人，反對當局在今年9月推行德育及國民教育科。遊行人士有懷孕九個半月的母親，擔心未出世的孩子將變「紅衛兵」；也有小學教師批評課程指引是「洗腦」，要為兒子及學生抗爭到底。

 

　　遊行人數雖多，但教育局局長吳克儉在遊行前已表明不管遊行人數多少，並非考慮是否撤回國民教育的因素。政務司司長林鄭月娥則表示，社會普遍認同推行德育及國民教育科，可鼓勵學生獨立思考，明辨是非，肯定不是洗腦教育，有關講法是不信任教育界，並不公道，若不推行會令很多人失望云云。

 

　　另外，行政會議召集人林煥光，在談及國民教育爭議時，指由國民教育服務中心製作、引發爭論的「教學手冊」不合格，是「次貨」，但社會不應因此否定國民教育，如今此爭議已演變成港人價值觀是否受重視的爭論。

 

　　至於為教育局編寫課程指引的德育及國民教育專責委員會主席李焯芬則說，該指引只是提綱，並非等於教科書，且鼓勵教師以生活事件及議題，培養學生獨立思考及批判能力，毋須迴避爭議性議題，也歡迎辦學團體根據自行情況編制教材﹔他更直言，若該科日後變成洗腦教育，他會毫不猶豫譴責教育局。

 

　　這次引起爭議的德育及國民教育科，若說是「洗腦教育」，有點危言聳聽，言過其實，由於香港是言論自由的地方，有來自不同渠道的訊息，學生怎會這麼容易被「洗腦」﹖事實上，該科若真如林鄭月娥所說，是培養明辨是非，相信沒有家長會反對。而且該科冠上「德育」之名，更是最佳包裝。

 

　　近代講德育最多的是五四運動時的教育家蔡元培。他所講的德育，是培養人、發展人和完善人，是令人解放的教育，是喚醒國民自主和自由意識的教育。若德育及國民教育科有此崇高目標，怎會有家長反對﹖家長群起指摘的，並且引起疑慮的，是那本「國情專題手冊」，內中提到「中國奉行社會主義，執政集團進步，無私、團結，任人唯賢，以民為本﹔美國實行兩黨政治，結果民主、共和兩黨惡鬥，人民當災。」而香港人所認識的今日中國，權鬥和貪腐現象不斷出現，又怎會放心下一代接受這種偏頗教導﹖

 

　　加上這本手冊，是教育局每年資助一千萬元編寫，令人懷疑手冊內容的意識形態與教育局是同一鼻孔出氣。另一個疑點則是，如今民情洶湧，反對之聲不絕如縷，當局仍一意孤行推行該科，為何不可以緩行，而要急如星火﹖

 

　　當年魯迅曾對林語堂的「費厄潑賴」(fair play，即公平遊戲)，寫了《費厄潑賴應該緩行》的文章，緩行的理由，在於己方「費厄」，對方並不「費厄」。如今國民教育科的情況正是如此，特區政府成立15年，也沒有推行國民教育科，為何新政府剛上場，急不及待，不等更多教學手冊出籠讓家長和教師有更多選擇﹖這就何來公道何言﹖難道這是如魯迅說的「請君入甕」，希望一旦米已成炊，反對已是太遲﹖