Looks to me like the drop started in early 2009 when Obama took office to me.
Oh c'mon, man, you are more savvy than that! Wages took a beating
because the economy has gone in the dumpster. That started back in 2008 and was set in motion by actions going back many, many years before. Arguably the mess we are now in started decades ago as we systematically reduced oversite of the financial and lending sectors.
To assume that somehow 2009 was when it all went to trash is ridiculous.
Bush was in office when the mess started (not that he was directly responsible for it any more than any other single president is ever responsible for these things) and in fact he started the ball rolling which Obama kept rolling.
But the economy has to burn itself through this as it always does. The best a prez can do is make it work out OK for the citizens by supporting legislation that will help get us through.
And, I can personally testify to the fact that I've never gone more than 18 months without a raise, yet in the last 4 years since Obama has been in office, I have received ONE.
Interestingly enough from 2005 to 2010 I had all of 2% worth of raise and one year with a mandatory 5% pay cut for everyone. Nothing to do with which president was in office, more to do with the "macroeconomic headwinds" the company I work for suffered.
Those are due to changes in the market and global economics as much as anything. Oh yeah and my company's penchant for "benchmarking" against their peer corporations so as not to pay their people too much.
That's what you get when you have GOOD BUSINESS PEOPLE in charge.
Your argument on deregulation is very specific to one problem created in 1999 when Bill Clinton signed a law that allowed mortgage means testing to go by the wayside.
Deregulation on behalf of the housing market actually goes back further to the end of the Carter administration and the push to get more people into houses, which Reagan also accelerated and piled onto with even more deregulation in the banking sector. Bush II was
big on the "ownership society" which pushed for even more lending.
But it wasn't anyone FORCING the banks to lend to high risk people
once the bankers found a way to MONETIZE that risk. Naked default swaps became the way for someone to
bet on people NOT paying their loans and then making MONEY off of that (as I understand it).
So once it became
profitable to make money off of other people's failure to pay back loans the sluice gates were opened.
"Offshoring" is going to happen unless you are prepared to shut down trade. Romney has a more credible plan to bring China to the bargaining table. However, the better idea is to focus on INSOURCING. Bringing work back home.
Romney
lost his leverage with China from the git-go by taking China on. China is peeved that Romney could be so nakedly hypocritical. China owns us by and large and watches us scream and cry about China and how bad they are. But now we face a Romney presidency I think the Chinese would be peeved that he made money off shipping jobs over there only to lambaste them.
Romney has no leg to stand on with China. He knows what they do and what they are doing all to well. And every time the dollar was strong I bet Romney was fine with offshoring of production, when the dollar was weak I'm sure he was just as fine with on shoring.
Romney cares about one thing: Romney. Money, money, money is what a professional financier worries about. He is an expert in making his own nut.
As such you can count on
nothing in the way of a particular coherent strategy as president. This is a country, not a business. Can't lay off states.
Offshoring happens because it is EXPEDIENT to make corporate profits by cutting OPEX. Onshoring is only reasonable this day and age when the dollar is weak.
This is fine and dandy for
businesses who owe no allegiance to ANYONE, but it is extremely bad for a President whose only allegiance is to
THIS country.
Romney wouldn't know what that felt like.
