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There should be a 5th explanation added: CEOs like to keep as much of the money as possible.
Is that something that's changed, though? Are CEOs greedier today than they were pre-Reagan? If so, why? It doesn't make sense to me that there would have been a change (though the lowered top marginal rate does mean there's more incentive to push top-end incomes higher and the lower capital-gains rates means different incentives for labor vs. capital income).
And then there's the issue of why workers would accept that. They are still needed, after all. That's where the explanations from the Bloomberg piece come in. De-unionization is probably a small factor there, but the four explanations offered in the piece can also explain it.
Here's a good response to it, BTW: http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017...e-in-the-horserace-noah-smith-is-running.html
I don't think the difference is as big as DeLong thinks, though, as the first piece is somewhat indirectly about *why* there's slack in labor markets, while the response is just to say that slack exists.
Anyway, I'm not arguing that it's a settled question; I'm saying it's complex, and we should really try to figure it out instead of settling on simple answers, even if they support policies I tend to agree with.
Let's take Trump, for example. He's a billionaire who has reportedly ripped off relatively low paid workers repeatedly throughout his career. Why? Can he not afford it? Of course he can. But he makes even more money if he crushes the little guy, so that is what he does.
These people have a different mentality. They are often brutally unfeeling and emotionless when it comes to business. I do not know what industry you are in, but most of us have seen this first hand.
Sure, but there were Trumps in the '60s, '50s--every decade of human history. It's not an explanation for any changes.