The significant gap between CEO and worker pay is a direct result of globalization. When companies can easily outsource labor, domestic workers lose their negotiating power, or "fear of loss." This allows capital owners and executives to capture a larger share of the value created, widening the income disparity.

The failure of "trickle-down economics" to lift the middle class was not due to the rich getting richer, but because globalization simultaneously exported jobs and imported cheap labor. This hollowed out the domestic blue-collar job market, preventing wealth from circulating within the national economy.

Wage stagnation is not accidental but a result of two concurrent policies. By sending manufacturing jobs overseas and simultaneously bringing in low-wage labor, corporations create a market where domestic workers lose nearly all leverage to demand higher pay for remaining jobs.

As an economy shifts from manufacturing to trading financial paper, wealth concentrates at the top. Those who own assets see their net worth multiply, while real wages for the majority stagnate or decline as jobs are globalized and labor is arbitraged for the lowest cost.

Moving away from globalization to fix the K-shaped economy is a direct trade-off. While consumers will pay more for goods, the nation gains supply chain control and empowers the domestic workforce, which can rebuild the middle class. There is no utopian solution.

Helping the middle class is a matter of economic physics, not emotional appeals. The most effective strategy is to create a labor market where there are more jobs than workers. This is achieved by re-shoring manufacturing and controlling the influx of cheap labor, which gives domestic workers the leverage to command higher wages.

The US faces two existential threats: strategic vulnerability to China and the socio-economic collapse of its working class. This forces a difficult but necessary policy choice to bring manufacturing home, accepting higher costs to ensure national security and domestic stability.

By shipping millions of jobs overseas, globalism forced American workers to compete with a much larger, cheaper international labor pool. This eliminated employers' need to compete for a finite domestic workforce, leading to wage stagnation. The proposed solution is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

The growing gap between company productivity and employee wages isn't solely due to corporate greed. The ability to outsource work globally gives companies immense leverage, weakening the negotiating power of domestic workers and suppressing their wages.