From the Financial Times, "Profits of doom":

Still: imagine, at the birth of globalisation, western politicians had made an amazing proposition to voters. "Together," they could have said, "we are going to end world poverty. In order to achieve this, we are going to ask you to accept a pay freeze in real terms for as long as it takes for the wages of workers in the developing countries to catch up, which we estimate will be about half a century. Until the adjustment is complete, the reduction in labour costs will produce the side-effect of extraordinarily high profits for companies, enriching many of those who are already among the richest in society.

"So there will be winners and losers. The bad news is that you, the ordinary, middle-class employees of the west, will be losers and everybody else will be winners. But the good news is, your sacrifice will make poverty history."

Would you have voted for this?