``Almost all the benefits of productivity growth have gone to firms, and very little to workers,'' says Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, whose adviser James Carville used the slogan, ``It's the economy, stupid,'' to stress the importance of the issue in the 1992 election.
One explanation for the public malaise may be the distribution of prosperity. Total compensation for Americans fell to 65.4 percent of national income in 2005, down from 66.2 percent in 2001, Federal Reserve figures show. At the same time, corporate profits rose to 12.3 percent of national income, up from 8.5 percent in the year Bush took office.
``From middle incomes down, there has been very little gain,'' says Robert Solow, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in economics. ``No wonder they feel they're not sharing in this prosperity.'' "
This is a story I am sure anyone besides fat bastard could have told anyone else. Good for bloomberg to promote this fact though.
One explanation for the public malaise may be the distribution of prosperity. Total compensation for Americans fell to 65.4 percent of national income in 2005, down from 66.2 percent in 2001, Federal Reserve figures show. At the same time, corporate profits rose to 12.3 percent of national income, up from 8.5 percent in the year Bush took office.
``From middle incomes down, there has been very little gain,'' says Robert Solow, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in economics. ``No wonder they feel they're not sharing in this prosperity.'' "
This is a story I am sure anyone besides fat bastard could have told anyone else. Good for bloomberg to promote this fact though.
