EPI study about CEO and Wall Street banker pay increasing income inequality

[Chris.B]

You're a fukking idiot

well according to the government most pay their fair share...your conspiracy theory tin-foil wearing hat attitude won't change sh!t.

 

[acri1]

This is one of the better written articles on the subject of the 1%, we can't over look the fact that they are "making the money and keeping it." This tells me people should start doing the same, no more excuses. Everything else is rhetoric, save your money so less of it goes to the 1%. The economy was operating on excess and people not having enough self control the past 15 years. Your cell phone bill is $1500/yr and you blow $5000/yr on crap, you are not going to beat the odds.

Look at table 1, CEO pay and the top 1%: How executive compensation and financial-sector pay have fueled income inequality | Economic Policy Institute

Most of this nonsense that is going on is the product of the last 10 or 15 years, makes you wonder what happened in 1999 that promoted this shift in consumer attitudes and spending. If people remember the environment around this time, its easy to figure out the answer. This was my first year on Sohh, so I gotta say what's up to Antipathy cause he saw it coming.

C'mon fam. Blaming this mess on people not saving enough is not addressing the real issue.

From 1978 to 2011, CEO compensation increased more than 725 percent, a rise substantially greater than stock market growth and the painfully slow 5.7 percent growth in worker compensation over the same period.

How is all of that because of consumer spending? It has more to do with CEOs choosing to pay themselves more and pay their workers less. And regressive tax policy.

Also, don't overlook basic economics. Consumer spending, and I mean mainstream consumer spending, drives the economy. Everybody being frugal and trying to save their money would be bad for the economy on a macroscopic level and would probably lead to more unemployment. If demand for products goes down, then, realistically, most CEOs will lay people off long before they take a pay cut.

Simply saying "if all those stupid poor people saved more everything would be good" is not addressing the real problem at all nor is it a real solution.

 

[Chris.B]

Believing in capitalism and a more reasonable distribution of wealth are not mutually exclusive.

Yes they are...capitalism and "reasonable" distribution of wealth cannot co-exist :jada:

 

[ltheghost]

The thing about it is, shareholders basically allow what these guys get paid. Most shareholders are rich people. They don't care. CEO pay is basically because people at that level basically vote on what their own salaries should be and base it on the market. But there are so few of them to the point where it's basically like they're all colluding to inflate their value.

The idea of salary caps or ratios will never fly in the United States. Unions have been broken and it's almost impossible to even get a clean union-organizing vote (about 50% of the discrepancy between unionizing in the US and Canada is just due to voting procedures). The fact that workers are banned from secondary boycotts effectively eliminates a large percentage of their bargaining power. Unions lost the initial battle in the 40s and everything else is the result of that. Workers are afraid of being fired for joining a union or voicing displeasure, it hinders the odds of unionization. All of this is just the result of poor labor laws and massive globalization.

People need to wake up. There is no middle class anymore. It's either you are getting paid or your not. It's almost comical when people come up with terms as "income inequality", if people were really upset that the CEO is getting paid 500% more than the the average worker hourly, they need to be in the streets rioting. But they are not, so the CEO will continue to get paid more than what you will make in your lifetime while people sit back and say..."Well I just need to pull myself up by my bootstraps.". Its the American Con...I mean American Dream. The game is rigged the moment you are born. And because no one is flipping over cars or burning buildings down things are not going to change. And big shots out to Michigan for shytting on the Unions. We are going to get flooded with low paying jobs over the next decade...more jobs but less pay. LOL Soon your will paying up the ass just for water...Privatization.

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

of course their living nice on wallstreet.

The liberals enabled all of this. Rent Seeking is made even more feasible with regulation capture.

FED liquidity goes straight Wallstreet now. Who can we thank for that? The God-King the progressives-- President Wilson.

 

[The Real]

of course their living nice on wallstreet.

The liberals enabled all of this. Rent Seeking is made even more feasible with regulation capture.

FED liquidity goes straight Wallstreet now. Who can we thank for that? The God-King the progressives-- President Wilson.

Someone learned some nice, new jargon this week.

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

and i love how the idiot above me says Remember Basic economics and then says saving is bad for the economy.

Hey, idiot. Basic Economic growth is driven by GPD growth. GDP growth is only the result of more efficient uses of scarce resources. More efficiency is the result of better technology. Better technology can only happened by investing consumable resouces into development and research. In other words, the economy needs savings to grow. savings is not bad for the economy.

Economics is not like Physics. There arent two sets of rules for the big and the small.

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

Someone learned some nice, new jargon this week.

I expect comments like this from a person who has an Anti-american, Communist, race-baiting agitator in his profile avatar.

Sometimes I wish a good man like Hoover had the NSA tools that Obama has today perhaps our country wouldn't be on the path of destruction as it is now.

 

[theworldismine13]

and guess where inequality is gonna go when a flood of low wage seekers flood the employment lines and wall street will be able to pay workers even less if the immigration law passes

 

[TheBigBopper]

Believing in capitalism and a more reasonable distribution of wealth are not mutually exclusive.

You won't get a "more reasonable distribution of wealth" until there's a more equitable distribution of motivation, intelligence, and opportunity. Government can only help fix the last ingredient in the mix.

 

[Serious]

I expect comments like this from a person who has an Anti-american, Communist, race-baiting agitator in his profile avatar.

Sometimes I wish a good man like Hoover had the NSA tools that Obama has today perhaps our country wouldn't be on the path of destruction as it is now.

There you have it folks, Gundumb has just locked in his candidacy for worst HL poster of 2013.

Should be interesting to see if new comer @Slang can top him.

 

[acri1]

and i love how the idiot above me says Remember Basic economics and then says saving is bad for the economy.

Hey, idiot. Basic Economic growth is driven by GPD growth. GDP growth is only the result of more efficient uses of scarce resources. More efficiency is the result of better technology. Better technology can only happened by investing consumable resouces into development and research. In other words, the economy needs savings to grow. savings is not bad for the economy.

Economics is not like Physics. There arent two sets of rules for the big and the small.

I didn't say saving in and of itself was bad for the economy, I said that lack of consumer spending (ie. demand) from the poor and middle class consumers is because it drives the economy. But if you want to argue otherwise, go right ahead.

You won't get a "more reasonable distribution of wealth" until there's a more equitable distribution of motivation, intelligence, and opportunity. Government can only help fix the last ingredient in the mix.

So back back in the 70s and earlier when CEOs "only" made 26 times what the average worker did and the top 1% didn't have such a huge share of wealth, we somehow had a "more equitable distribution of motivation, intelligence, and opportunity"? :disdain:

I guess when 1980 hit all of a sudden the whole world became lazy and stupid.

People kill me attributing problems of the last few decades to human nature. As if human nature has somehow radically changed in the last 20 or 30 years.

 

[TheBigBopper]

So back back in the 70s and earlier when CEOs "only" made 26 times what the average worker did and the top 1% didn't have such a huge share of wealth, we somehow had a "more equitable distribution of motivation, intelligence, and opportunity"? :disdain:

I guess when 1980 hit all of a sudden the whole world became lazy and stupid.

People kill me attributing problems of the last few decades to human nature. As if human nature has somehow radically changed in the last 20 or 30 years.

People didn't change but the needs of the economy changed. Finance and technology, IQ intensive jobs, and industries in which people of average IQ could make a living became smaller. You'll see more of in the next few decades.

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

a good man like Hoover

 

[Goat poster]

People didn't change but the needs of the economy changed. Finance and technology, IQ intensive jobs, and industries in which people of average IQ could make a living became smaller. You'll see more of in the next few decades.

See more of what?

Jobs for people with "average IQ" getting smaller?