More profits for them, less pay for us

Balance of power shifts to the employers:

"It has been harder and harder to get pay rises out of the company even though profits are good," he complains. Over the past year the problem of stagnant wages has not been confined solely to those working for companies that are heavily exposed to foreign competition. With wages across the nation failing to keep pace with inflation, an increasing number of workers are justified in feeling that they have been treading water, or worse.

U.S. real wages fall at fastest rate in 14 years:

Stingy pay rises mean many Americans will have to work longer hours to keep up with the cost of living, and they could ultimately undermine consumer spending and economic growth.

Many economists believe that in spite of the unexpectedly large rise in job creation of 274,000 in April, the uneven revival in the labour market since the 2001 recession has made it hard for workers to negotiate real improvements in living standards.

Even after last month's bumper gain in employment, there are 22,000 fewer private sector jobs than when the recession began in March 2001, a 0.02 per cent fall. At the same point in the recovery from the recession of the early 1990s, private sector employment was up 4.7 per cent.

In his second inaugural address, President Bush told us that "In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence." Wrong. In America's new ideal of freedom, citizens find the indignity and precariousness of living among wealthy management fatcats and CEO's who tell us "I got mine: screw you." In fact, "I-got-mine-screw-you" seems to be the central philosophy of the ownership society. I can't wait.