Skip to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.

Thailand News and Discussion Forum | ASEANNOW

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

What happened to our wages in the west?

Featured Replies

49 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

If you are in need of a definition of neoliberalism, then you perhaps ought to consider staying away from discussing economics.

Everyone has a different perspective on these terms. Some believe socialism refers to a large welfare state. What is your definition of neoliberalism?

  • Replies 102
  • Views 1.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Most Popular Posts

  • BritManToo
    BritManToo

    Democratic/Socialism is the governments running the EU. So there's your explanation. The EU socialist governments (under German rule) have taken money from white folk and given it in welfare to the 3

  • Unions don't care about the workers, just their dues. Although, they do negotiate a better contract, sometimes, for the good, and not so good. When push comes to shove, they'll sell you out. Bee

  • You need to stop being so smug and arrogant. Based on your posts, it seems you don’t truly understand the topic. Bye Felicia

Posted Images

22 hours ago, blaze master said:

Wasn't it started in 1980 and renewed yearly until it was made permanent in 2001 after China joined the WTO ?

Would mean the decline you detailed out has been happening for 40 years. Which would be a better starting point to measure the job losses etc.

Manufacturing jobs started to decline in the late 1970s and significantly dropped around the year 2000.

6a01348793456c970c022ad3c6be41200b-500wi.webp

56 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Jobs moved offshore because neoliberalism removed the barriers that were preventing corporations offshoring production.

Privatized profits, socialized consequences.

What specific barriers are you talking about?

  • Popular Post
5 minutes ago, Fact said:

What specific barriers are you talking about?

In particular international transfer of money, debt and liabilities.

Do I need to define international, transfer, money, debt or liabilities?

  • Popular Post
9 minutes ago, Fact said:

Manufacturing jobs started to decline in the late 1970s and significantly dropped around the year 2000.

6a01348793456c970c022ad3c6be41200b-500wi.webp

They didn’t decline.

They were moved offshore.

  • Popular Post
Just now, Chomper Higgot said:

In particular international transfer of money, debt and liabilities.

Do I need to define international, transfer, money, debt or liabilities?

You need to stop being so smug and arrogant. Based on your posts, it seems you don’t truly understand the topic.

Bye Felicia

4 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

They didn’t decline.

They were moved offshore.

Due to unions making business struggle

  • Popular Post
29 minutes ago, Fact said:

You need to stop being so smug and arrogant. Based on your posts, it seems you don’t truly understand the topic.

Bye Felicia

Flounce low and to the right!

  • Popular Post
27 minutes ago, Harrisfan said:

Due to unions making business struggle

Due to the fact trickle down economics is a lie.

Just now, Chomper Higgot said:

Due to the fact trickle down economics is a lie.

Due to lefty unions wrecking businesses

Rich are getting richer even in the West. Middle classes are getting poorer burdened by cost of living and inflation, mainly since they barred the cheap Russian oil all over western europe. . And the illegals and asylum seekers entering Europe are getting the benefits and living the good life we used to have.

1 hour ago, Fact said:

Manufacturing jobs started to decline in the late 1970s and significantly dropped around the year 2000.

6a01348793456c970c022ad3c6be41200b-500wi.webp

About right eh. The numbers speak volumes.

7 minutes ago, SingAPorn said:

Rich are getting richer even in the West. Middle classes are getting poorer burdened by cost of living and inflation, mainly since they barred the cheap Russian oil all over western europe. . And the illegals and asylum seekers entering Europe are getting the benefits and living the good life we used to have.

The middle class was a fluke. Society is just correcting itself now.

  • Popular Post
7 hours ago, SingAPorn said:

Rich are getting richer even in the West. Middle classes are getting poorer burdened by cost of living and inflation, mainly since they barred the cheap Russian oil all over western europe. . And the illegals and asylum seekers entering Europe are getting the benefits and living the good life we used to have.

Yes the wealth gap has widened and is rapidly widening as the wealth of the working class and now middle class is hollowed out and funneled to the rich.

Let me expose the fallacy of your last sentence.

What ‘we’ used to have, is living wages that supported families, paid for a roof over their heads, meals on tables, shirts on backs and enough left over for a holiday.

Life long employment.

Affordable housing.

Work place pensions with benefits that enabled retirement while still in good health and a dignified old age.

Affordable health care. Public services that functioned.

The list goes on.

All gutted by neoliberalism, not by ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘asylum seekers’.

Follow the money, it’s not trickling down.

10 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Jobs moved offshore because neoliberalism removed the barriers that were preventing corporations offshoring production.

Privatized profits, socialized consequences.

Bush senior, Clinton and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman were wrong.

Chomper and these two were right.

  • Popular Post
7 hours ago, blaze master said:

The middle class was a fluke. Society is just correcting itself now.

The middle class was not a fluke, it arose as a direct result of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

It’s collapse was started by Regan’s neoliberalism,

  • Popular Post
1 minute ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

Bush senior, Clinton and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman were wrong.

Chomper and these two were right.

Do you have an argument you wish to make?

I’m not wasting time watching videos.

21 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Work place pensions with benefits


Pensions suck. Keep you locked into abusive, exploitative work situations, and if the company goes broke after say 29 years, you miss out on a huge payoff. If a company wants to offer them, then whatever, but they shouldn't be celebrated and definitely not encouraged via government policy.

21 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Do you have an argument

That's what he wants, so he can win. Not a discussion. It is the AN way.

Just now, davb said:


Pensions suck. Keep you locked into abusive, exploitative work situations, and if the company goes broke after say 29 years, you miss out on a huge payoff. If a company wants to offer them, then whatever, but they shouldn't be celebrated and definitely not encouraged via government policy.

I expect you and I have a different experience of pensions and the work environment.

Although even the same pension opportunities doesn’t result in the same outcome.

I worked with a guy who made the ‘pensions suck/they won’t payout’ argument.

He refused to sign up, worked 40 years for the same company and retired on the state pension, missing out on what would have been 60% of final salary indexed for the life of him and his wife.

Final salary pensions are one of those things ‘we’ have lost, and they didn’t get handed to ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘asylum seekers’.

On 2/15/2026 at 11:42 PM, swissie said:

What happened to our "wages" in the west?

My father was the only "breadwinner". My mother was a housewife. We never lacked anything. Summer holidays in Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia. Father able to buy 2 houses over time.

And today? Wife has to have a job and husband has to work 2 to 3 jobs (in certain countries) just to make ends meet.

All this during a phase of massive "economic growth" lasting for decades.

Clearly, the ones that were able to qualify as "stockholders" were the winners. All others (the weakest part of society) were left out of the economic growth as far as "wage growth" is concerned. = Wife MUST work and daddy needs 2 jobs. Progress for whom, I ask?

Is it any wonder that the youth in the west is getting a bit "discrunteled", realising that "something went wrong", critisising the Democratic/Capitalistic system incrasingly?

Compared to today, we were "well off". With only 1 "breadwinner", well understood.

So again, what happened to our "wages" in the west?

The economy has become sterile, purely profit driven, and devoid of humanity. In the old days a business or company had moral standards, the standards of the owners, who identified with the workers and their families with mutual respect. By the 80s companies had grown bigger and the executives wealthier, and no longer had or needed the human factor in their economic equation, because humanity didn't make them any richer, but ruthless greed did. So wages no longer rose to keep pace with inflation, and the scales tipped wildly in favor of the wealthy businesses and against the worker. Additionally, businesses began to outsource their labor to cheap less developed countries and economies full of people willing to work cheaply. And yes, this is the inevitable result of unbridled unregulated runaway capitalism. the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

42 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

All gutted by neoliberalism, not by ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘asylum seekers’.

All gutted by left wing policies.

  • Popular Post
Just now, TedG said:

All gutted by left wing policies.

The mega wealthy don't subscribe to any view, left right up down or democrat/republican. The obscenely rich will support anyone who makes them richer in any way. They are the ones who control policies. But That kind of stuff is obviously way over your head.

On 2/15/2026 at 11:42 PM, swissie said:

What happened to our "wages" in the west?

People have far more things to spend their money on, kids want stuff that didn't exist back then, most all of it is crap you don't really need.

AI is coming for the jobs.

No wages in stead of the already too high wages in the west.

If we look at things on a global/international level, it seems to me difficult for those of us who grew up in The West's golden years (say, 1960-2010) to complain too much.

What we are living now is The West's struggle to maintain itself as the Second World moves vigorously up the ladder (China obviously, but also now India & Vietnam & Brazil and even Black Africa... all gathering speed).

The West mostly built itself over the last 200 years on the backs of Third World slave labour. So, suck it up, Fellas.

14 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

If we look at things on a global/international level, it seems to me difficult for those of us who grew up in The West's golden years (say, 1960-2010) to complain too much.

What we are living now is The West's struggle to maintain itself as the Second World moves vigorously up the ladder (China obviously, but also now India & Vietnam & Brazil and even Black Africa... all gathering speed).

The West mostly built itself over the last 200 years on the backs of Third World slave labour. So, suck it up, Fellas.

More about the West allowing the 3rd world to move in.

But I'm OK because while they were moving in, I was moving out.

On 2/16/2026 at 12:52 AM, swissie said:

Yes, it was clear from the beginning, that Western wages could not compete with Chinese wages. We were told that vaccum cleaners from China would be 30% cheaper for us. Great!

But how many times per year do we need to buy a vaccum cleaner? How many times do we need a monthly wage per year? The root of the problem.

WTO membership or not, do you think the Chinese would be happy to manufacture t-shirts and flip flops forever on miserable wages? Like it or not, the East is rising fast and appears unstoppable. There is no reason in the long term a Swiss taxi driver to earn 15 times more than a Thai for essentially same jobs.

On 2/15/2026 at 11:42 PM, swissie said:

What happened to our "wages" in the west?

Decimated by importing cheap immigrant labour that drives wages down.

Create an account or sign in to comment

Recently Browsing 0

  • No registered users viewing this page.

Account

Navigation

Search

Search

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.