We live in a wonderful time. The proletariat has reached the point where it no longer wants bread. All it wants is work. We no longer seek the goal, but the means. The big bosses have succeeded in their coup. People like to be exploited to such an extent that they end up begging their torturers to put them in penal servitude. It borders on masochism. The guys are so happy to work that even when they are fired, they are still supposed to kiss their boss's ass.
I have been in the job market for 15 years and for 15 years I have heard the same old story: it is the crisis. During this period my bosses (and also those of my wife) have always found good excuses not to increase our salaries. One year the profit was not good. The next the turnover. The next the competition was eating up too much market share. The next the Swiss franc was too strong. They always managed to find a negative point to justify a stagnation of salaries, or even a reduction in social benefits.
Yet, in the meantime, they didn't hesitate to have a good drink along the way. As an illustration, during this so-called crisis period, the Swiss Performance Index (which totals the price and dividend performance of Swiss companies listed on the stock exchange) rose by 90%! Um... how many of you received a raise of even a third of this performance during this period? How many of you received a raise at all?!
Who are we kidding? The problem is that by eating into the purchasing power of the middle class in this way, big business is making any economic recovery ephemeral. Only a fair distribution of wealth can sustainably support domestic consumption. As long as the masses have to consume by tightening their belts, we will always live on a razor's edge. It's the snake biting its own tail: economic crisis -> drop in purchasing power -> economic crisis...
The good news is that with the aging of the population, there will soon not be enough manpower. And then the power may well change hands. But by the time we get there I hope I will have already retired!
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"The good news is that with the aging of the population, there will soon not be enough labor." Excellent remark, this is already what I observe in Japan, a country which has never set the increase in profits as an objective (the Nikkei today is 3 times lower than in 1989). Japanese companies are short of labor in many areas. The objective of private companies is to last by leaving a margin for the entrepreneur and to follow the evolutions of the needs of its customers. Western companies have the objective of growing profits each year at a rate uncorrelated with reality (my company DJ30 is a champion in this race)!!