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US Bosses Now Earn 312 Times the Average Worker's Wage, Figures Show (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The chief executives of America's top 350 companies earned 312 times more than their workers on average last year, according to a new report published Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute. The rise came after the bosses of America's largest companies got an average pay rise of 17.6% in 2017, taking home an average of $18.9m in compensation while their employees' wages stalled, rising just 0.3% over the year. The pay gap has risen dramatically, with some fluctuations, since the 1990s. In 1965 the ratio of CEO to worker pay was 20 to one; that figure had risen to 58 to one by in 1989 and peaked in 2000 when CEOs earned 344 times the wage of their average worker. CEO pay dipped in the early 2000s and during the last recession, but has been rising rapidly since 2009. Chief executives are even leaving the 0.1% in the dust. The bosses of large firms now earn 5.5 times as much as the average earner in the top 0.1%.
And this is why capitalism will not be around for much longer. It totally puts the world upside down. Post below how you would change the world to have less capitalism and less of a wage gap.
-=BeauHD=-
"Last year, McDonald’s boss Steve Easterbrook earned $21.7m while the McDonald’s workers earned a median wage of just $7,017 – a CEO to worker pay ratio of 3,101 to one."
$7,017 is less than half the federal minimum wage. Clearly this "study" includes part time workers.
..only from the largest companies. In most small business the CEO *IS* the lowest paid employee because the CEO is usually the owner.
what good does it to do raise your wages since if seems like prices will just go up to compensate. If the Union gets a 20% raise then the next day the cost of milk goes up 20%, right?
In practice that's not what happens. What's going on there is inflation, and inflation is only a zero sum game when productivity isn't going up. But productivity has gone up non stop for over 100 years. In the 70s wages stopped keeping pace with productivity gains.
What we have now is an oversupply of labor. Supply and demand is a two way street, but it's tough to get folks to acknowledge that because nobody like to think of themselves as a simple commodity. We're all precious, irreplaceable snowflakes. It doesn't help that there's a small group at the top (math majors, surgeons, top athletes) who are. There's a lot of folks who don't want to see those productivity gains distributed more equitably because it's a point of pride for them. At least that's the only explanation I've come up with why so many oppose things like single payer healthcare. Then again I've also noticed a lot of those single payer healthcare opponents qualify for Medicare and/or the VA.... Not that the powers that be haven't noticed and aren't working to eliminate those programs and give themselves the money. But again, I've never met a snowflake that thinks they can melt with the rest of us...
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It's fine. The average boss works 312 times harder than their average employee, so it's all good.
I honestly have no problems with someone being paid 40000x what I am being paid - whatever, I agreed to work for however much the company was paying.
Where I do think there is a fundamental problem; figuring out who to pay what.
To my mind this is pretty simply - a person should be paid a sliding scale based on how many people their work directly impacts, combined with how close they are to affecting customers.
So a CEO is making choices that affect all of the customers, and staff - obviously they still get paid very well.
A mail guy or someone working a front desk? Come on, they are not offering much real value and pay should be commensurate with that basic fact.
Where things are out of whack currently is the degree to which technical people affect large numbers of people, or bring in huge deals - yet still get paid less than a manager leading a team of ten people. I think a lot of us have seen things like multi-million dollar deals that hinged on the work of a handful (sometimes just one) people pulling a technical rabbit out of a hat to get a contract signed. Yet what does any technical person get from that? Pretty much squat, MAYBE a few K as a bonus at better companies.
Very obviously my view is skewed as I am one of the people that would benefit most from this new way of thinking about pay. Stock options kind of get there but not really as they are spread around equally among technical staff and we all know some staff are worth WAY more than others. It's a shame that reality everyone knows is not reflected in salary, usually in fact the case is the opposite...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I live in Japan where pay is more even but my take home pay is 1/2 to 1/6th what it would be in the USA so why do I care that my USA CEO makes larger multiple of my salary when they are willing to pay me far more than my Japanese CEO how makes less???
...where all those productivity increases over the past few decades were going.
Boards have voted, and the decision was made. Thousands, and thousands and thousands of times - and almost all those times, the answer was a little more to the already rich each time.
And now it's just 'understood' that this is the right move to make. Every time.
Because, sometimes, corruption is just a thing that happens to happen every day.
And open corruption on that level is also the nastiest - oddly enough by not being seen as disgusting anymore.
The McDonald's and Walmart CEO's make about $10 per employee per year.
The US Government taxes those employees far more.
CEOs make more money because they have far more employees working for them. Small business owners don't make nearly as much as large companies with thousands of employees.
Work Safe Porn
There are certain words and phrases that have no fixed definition, so the use of them usually says more about the person using them, than the object they are being used to describe. Like “fascism” in modern times, the term “feudalism” was mostly a term of disparagement in the 18th and 19th century. According to scholars of the subject, the word “feudal” was first used in the 17th century, as in feudal order. It later came into more common usage in Marxist political propaganda in the 18th and 19th century.
Just because feudalism was largely used as a meaningless epithet, it does not mean it did not exist. Scholars generally agree that feudalism was “a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.” The lord owned the land, the vassal was granted use of it by the lord. The land was the fief. In exchange for legal and physical protection, the lord expected service, usually military service, but also food rents and labor from the peasants.
Marxists later pointed out that the codes and customs that we associate with this period relied on the lord owning the one thing of value, the land. The person at the top of the feudal order had a monopoly on the one store of value and that gave him a monopoly on the law. The old saying about the golden rule is true. The man with the gold makes the rules. This is why as coinage made a comeback in the medieval period, kings took control of the mints. It was both a source a wealth, seigniorage, and a source of power.
A useful example of this is the decision by Henry VIII to dissolve the monasteries of the Catholic Church. By seizing church lands, which constituted about a quarter of the national wealth, and redistributing them to favored aristocrats, Henry fundamentally altered English society. He weakened the power of the old nobles, by filling their ranks with new members loyal to Henry. He also eliminated an alternative source of economic power in English society. Henry was supreme power because he controlled the land.
Feudalism only works when a small elite controls the source of wealth. Then they can control the exploitation of it. In Europe, as Christianity spread, the Church required lands, becoming one of the most powerful forces in society. The warrior elite was exclusively Catholic, thus they had a loyalty to the Pope, as God’s representative on earth. Therefore, the system of controlling wealth not only had a direct financial benefit to the people at the top, it had the blessing of God’s representative, who sat atop the whole system.
That’s something to keep in mind as we see technology evolve into a feudal system, where a small elite controls the resources and grants permission to users. The software oligopolies are now shifting all of their licencing to a subscription model. It’s not just the mobile platforms. Developers of enterprise software for business are adopting the same model. The users have no ownership rights. Instead they are renters, subject to terms and conditions imposed by the developer or platform holder. The users is literally a tenant.
The main reason developers are shifting to this model is that they cannot charge high fees for their software, due to the mass of software on the market. Competition has drive down prices. Further, customers are not inclined to pay high maintenance fees, when they can buy new systems at competitive rates. The solution is stop selling the stuff and start renting it. This fits the oligopoly scheme as it ultimately puts them in control of the developers. Apple and Google are now running protection rackets for developers.
It also means the end of any useful development. Take a look at the situation Stefan Molyneux faces. A band of religious fanatics has declared him a heretic and wants him burned. The Great Church of Technology is now in the process of having him expelled from the internet. As he wrote in a post, he inves
The real issues is not in the number.
It's in the fact that these guys basically decide their own salaries. Mr. Boss is the CEO of company A, and sits on the board of company B and C. Mr. Big, meanwhile, is CEO of company B, but sits on the board of A and C, and Mr. Greedy is CEO of C and on the board of A and B.
Guess what they will decide when it comes to yearly reviews and salary adjustments.
The system is broken because a relatively small in group decides amongst themselves, instead of the independent outside review that the system is intended to have. It doesn't even need to have all companies working like that - company D which has a clean board and CEO, will not be able to resist the upwards pull of the others, because the CEO of D one day will get an offer from A, or just look at it, and see that the CEO there gets 200% more, and he will ask his board why he doesn't and what they will do to stop him from going there.
This kind of built-in dilemma is exactly where government oversight and regulation comes into play, when the system is broken and needs outside interference to right itself. Because no publicly traded company will start with the change, because doing so just isn't a rational decision.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What really ticks me off is when loser CEOs get big compensation, and/or golden parachutes.
Table-ized A.I.
Some workers will inevitably be paid vastly more than others, as a reflection of the value they provide. I don't think many software developers here would be happy with fast food wages, even if that would create the equality they claim to want.
Nevertheless I think there's a real problem with CEO pay. First, there's evidence they don't add nearly as much value as expected, although it can be hard to quantify. But more importantly there's a misalignment of incentives, something economists call the principal-agent problem.
CEOs are supposed to be managing the company for the benefit of shareholders. Yet, they are simultaneously in the best position to profit personally from decisions that are bad for the company. That's one reason why there's a board, to look after shareholders' interests. But who sits on boards? Mostly, other CEOs or high-level managers who are likely to treat each other sympathetically. They know shareholder lawsuits are rare and difficult to prove.
CEOs get paid a lot because other CEOs help determine their pay, and because a really good CEO could add tremendous value but judging their ability is extremely difficult, so it can appear to be worth the gamble.
Sure, Bob. Just don't get a heart attack trying to lift all that lard on your carcass from the couch when you reach for your rifle.
What matters is "productivity". And, yes, the average boss is 312 times more productive than his average employee; put another way, each employee is renting the employer's infrastructure so that the employee himself can actually be useful.
What you meant to say was: How about we start privatizing more of government.
More Capitalism. Less Democracy. That is the solution.
It's not the case that capitalist money corrupts government, but rather government power corrupts capitalists.
The Founders wanted a small government to facilitate a society run by The People. Well, it's now wonder that everything has gone tits up now that government is enormous enough to tell everyone what to do at the point of a gun.
This is normal under a society that has private property. The only way to stop it is to restrict private property. Good luck.
The work of the cleaning crew, for example, impacts everyone in the company.
You can easily define that, by roughly calculating how many bathrooms a worker takes care of, and what percentage of the day employees visit them.
You've also forgotten the customer metric, which a janitor scores zero on.
Under my system, a janitor would be paid much the same, because they may impact a fair number of employees but only lightly.
And, quite honestly, the work of the CEO most of the time affects very few people.
That is insane. They are making choices that affect the EXISTENCE of every department, what every customer sees, even the location of the building they are in. It is all on them and they should be paid according to that degree of responsibility.
Who is more meaningful, the developer or the sysadmin?
That's a more interesting question but I'd put them about the same level, as in "very high" because of the generally high customer touch - well, depending on if they are taking care of internal or external systems.
Really? Do without them for a month and see how well that goes.
It's not that you can do without them as a function; it's how much you can replace one with anyone else and no-one really noticing or being affected (although frankly lots of companies ARE doing away with front desk greeters, and mail rooms are becoming more automated leaving fewer employees affecting more people and getting paid more...).
Every job in a company is important,
We all know that is false, I have seen way to many imbeciles working at companies to claim every job is important. You have never seen someone let go, the job remaining unfilled and it doesn't really end up mattering?
Even if some job matters many jobs matter. lot less. Moving around physical mail is at this point laughably useless in a world where anything important is electronic, or someone can easily go down and collect a package.
The problem of fair payment is not a simple one, and a blanket solution will not work.
It's not simple but the system I propose would work a lot better than what happens now, and lead to a lot more fair pay. Mostly for me of course; but that's because I have made good life choices.
on the high end, people get ridiculous salaries and aren't reviewed properly because they are all part of the same circle-jerk group
Thus if you want to guard against this you MUST implement a system, blanket or otherwise, that flattens out jerks self-selecting other jerks for high paying positions of great actual importance because they are at a high level (though there again, we all know from experience some high level positions sometimes do absolutely nothing at all for a company or customers)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Trump will fix it, he gave them all big tax cuts...oh wait...
This unproductive, wasteful, divisive hemming and hawing is the thanks we Americans get for letting the degenerate masses into our country. Keep these socialist losers out. OUT!
As you say, capitalists are tempted by the power of government's jackboots; capitalists are corrupted by government.
Why work to get people's money through voluntary agreement, when you can choose where to point Uncle Sam's pistol instead?
CAPTCHA: wrecked
Make America Great Again harkens back to earlier times, when things seems "great" for the average person. So when was it at it's "greatest"? Perhaps in the 1960's, when the CEO/worker income ration was closer to 20/1? It's probably not the only factor, but I'm willing to bet it is a significant one. At least for the average worker.
So tell us, what actually is his salary? Actual salary, not the stock and options compensation typical of start-ups. It's a public company, it should be out there. Or are you yourself hand-waving to imply that he's one of those evil rich guys draining the business dry with his salary while his workers starve?
Naturally, many other executives in the company would like a piece of that $21.7m pie. So, either they are dumbfucks, or they've concluded that said salary is worth it.
You folks are as stupid as those arguing that women are cheaper for the same work; if they were, then you'd rapidly see the rise of women-only corporations. Guess what? They're not getting paid less than they're worth, and CEOs aren't getting paid more than they're worth.
CAPTCHA: grieve
Every corner is getting an urgent care center or emergency room. One was built on a torn-down family fun center. I guess families didn't have enough disposable income to keep it profitable.
Your $10 figure is right for Walmart but it's closer to $100 for McDonalds. In any case, the tax reference is bizarre. CEO pay is not a tax on employees. Yet considering that the average McDonalds employee makes $7000 a year, they don't pay any federal income tax. They probably receive money through the EIC along with any other programs they are enrolled in.
So when was it at it's "greatest"?
In all honestly it's pretty great still. MAGA is just about re-tuning the bits that have gone flat, like job creation or the flow of money through the system. Trump has very much re-tuned a lot of that to good effect which is why the economy, jobs, and stock market have all greatly improved under Trump.
Anyone who is not willing to admit those basic facts will lose to Trump until they do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What I truly detest is the way you think you’re right wing nutjob rantings have any connection with reality.
Are CEOS suddenly now worth 321x when in the 60s is was 20x.
You’re a dumb cunt or a liar, hard to tell which.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-E0KGjJAx8
You once again repeat the other poster's point: It is the temptation of governmental coercion that corrupts capitalists into non-capitalist cronies.
Government is the problem, not capitalism.
I'm curious, does your stockpile prevent the poison slipped into your drink, or the throat being slit in the middle of the night? Also as a maker, I assume you have to go to work, so I guess I can grab your children as excellent hostages.
Or you can just pay some welfare and prevent any of the above from happening, which is what happens when people get fucking desperate.
The Nazis didn't start Germany's social welfare system—Bismark did that back in the 1880s, before most of those guys were even born.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
. . .
7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens...
. . .
9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:
11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.
12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
18. We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers [(Wallstreet Banksters?)], Schieber and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
19. We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order.
20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.
21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
. . .
25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich...
Yup. People look one move ahead and don't understand why they keep losing ..
My stockpile is for defense.
Come at me, bro. I'm sick of your extortion.
So, to you a "compensation" of billions in stock, which is basically a taxation avoidance trick, is insignificant? You must be the International Prototype of intellectual dishonesty.
What could your point possibly be?
Anyway, read the Nazis 25-point plastform from 1920; the socialist Democrats would be quite happy with most of it.
There's no better separation of powers than competition among suppliers.
There has never been One World Government; at the level of the Nation State, there has always been total anarchy, which has kept Tyranny in check, even at the height of the Cold War. And, the only thing that has kept humanity progressing towards evermore civil interaction has been the spread of capitalism.
Look what productive trade did for the once mortal enemies of the world.
Human beings aren't cogs in a machine, Anon.
When will you filthy Statists get that? The rest of us are sick of your stupid, naive ideas, which will only ever lead to Tyranny.
Socialism doesn't work.
Who determines the CEO's salary? Not the mum and dad share holder. Not even the institutional ones unless the salary is completely outrageous. It is a board. And who is on that board? A bunch of mates that nobody really knows.
That is what creates the high salaries. Nobody is really accountable for them. And the CEO is probably on the board of other large companies.
So, the CEO needs to be basically competent, at least at managing the board. But nobody knows who is or is not good at managing the company. Whether it is doing well because or despite the CEO.
The exception is probably CEOs that actually built the company. Bill Gates comes to mind. Love or hate him, he was clearly competent.
Stupid fucking idiots, like you, fuck everything up.
https://www.snopes.com/news/20...
The claim that the Nazis actually were leftists or socialists in any generally accepted sense of those terms flies in the face of historical reality.
Or you could have paid attention in your high school world history class, and not been so fucking clueless for your life. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
The McDonald's and Walmart CEO's make about $10 per employee per year.
The US Government taxes those employees far more.
You're saying this as if it's justified and fair. Why should a major CEO's compensation be proportionate to the number of employees they have? Shouldn't it be valued at the value they bring themselves? That's how everyone else works.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
I'd hazard that if one individual is worth 312x any other individual in the company it's pointing out a fundamental problem with the structure of your business.
It's kind of how like countries that put 'Democratic' in the actual name of their country are anything but.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Fairness: I get what I want!
They were competing for the same power base.
They were rival factions, all sprung from Marxism and its failure to fulfill predictions. Go read about the history of Fascism, and its main philosopher Giovanni Gentile; the horrors of the last century were the inevitable Tyranny of the Left.
The Left always eats its own in the course of its unprincipled clawing towards the pinnacle of power.
If you earn more than 100 times salary, your taxes are 70% per dollar above that.
Earn above 200x, taxes are 80%
Earn above 300x, taxes are 90%
How much is enough!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Exactly. It's meant to fool the stupid, and obviously works.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
All that proves is that one should be wary of you would-be do-gooders. Get off my property.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Just tax 2% more of all rich asses, in the top 1% bracket.
There is so much assets in the 1%er club, that taking just 2% of it will fix your problems.
Thats just pure evil, when they KNOW they have the cash to fix it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Read you some history. They were Leftists, and ended up where all leftists end up: Murderous Tyranny. That's what happens when you subordinate the individual to the collective.
A government depends on taxation, which is taking resources from people against their will at the point of a gun, something not allowed by capitalism—ownership and property rights don't mean much if you can just take what you want by decree.
There has never been One World Government; nation states have always interacted in total anarchy, and this includes interaction according to the philosophy of capitalism—yet no government to "oversee".
Your position is weak sauce.
Echoing the founding philosopher of Fascism (Giovanni Gentile), Benito Mussolini loved to say "Everything in the State; nothing human outside the State; nothing against the State." Both were fanatical socialists who subscribed to what they considered a tweaking of Marxism.
Learn you what a Fascist is, boy.
"What I truly detest about people with your crippled mental condition..."
"truly you are a monster'
Ah forget it... your ad hominem 'arguments' are not worth the effort...
Hitler himself publicly proclaimed the 25-point program, and the DAP added "National Socialist" to its name after Hitler (and early member) won the rest of the party over to his particular politics.
As for the implementation of the socialist policies, Hitler's goal was to first to secure a strong Reich, and then to fully implement the socialist agenda; he had a falling out with a couple members of the party who wanted to implement the socialism first and then only go about expanding and securing the Reich. Either way, Hitler was a devoted socialist.
You know nothing. You are a fraud. You can glean as much from skimming Wikipedia. WTF do they teach you children in schools these days?
It's recorded history. It doesn't matter what you want to believe.
Fascists and Nazis are undeniably leftist denominations.
Hitler himself publicly proclaimed the 25-point program, and the DAP added "National Socialist" to its name after Hitler (an early member) won the rest of the party over to his particular politics.
As for the implementation of the socialist policies, Hitler's goal was to first to secure a strong Reich, and then to fully implement the socialist agenda; he had a falling out with a couple members of the party who wanted to implement the socialism first and then only go about expanding and securing the Reich. Either way, Hitler was a devoted socialist.
The reason it's "nationalist" is because Marxism's predictions of an international revolution failed to come true, and the various socialists across Europe noted that nationalism was a very strong strain throughout WWI. As a result, they tweaked Marxism to include provoked revolution (rather than spontaneous revolution) and to frame said revolution in terms of national identity, especially by describing the oppressors as the rich nations and the oppressed as the poor nations. This was the origin of Giovanni Gentile's "Fascism", and with the addition of racism (particularly against Jews), one gets Nazism.
Man, you know nothing. You've been utterly indoctrinated by your Marxist professors, who just can't bear to admit the Tyrannical nature of the Left.
Sergey/Google, Bloomberg, Facebook, Twitter CEOs etc fund and support the DNC - thus the extra money is totally worth it right?
The bosses started playing catchup with each other after political correctness forced their salaries to become public. The communists knew this would happen, but, any propaganda is good propaganda. Who cares about the workers? Not politicians.
Weâ(TM)re reaching the point where we all stand together or we all fall. Great Wealth is more the sign of a predator class than of wisdom and accomplishment. None of us live without the farmer, the truck driver, the mechanic, the road crew. Their places in society must be respected and not exploited by those in simple management power who all to often have no real skills of their own except cannabslism, ruthlessness, and lack of empathy. Humanity is at a very low point in critical ways right now.
'Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it' (Goebbels).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The terms "left" and "right" refer to the political persuasions that popped up in revolutionary France: "right wing" meant "in support of the Old Order, namely the Monarchy and the Church", whereas the left grew from marxist philosophy, and called for the overthrowing of the Old Order and the creation of a New Man as part of the lifting of the proletariat out of oppression.
Nazism and Fascism were squarely grounded in the leftist movement.
In America, the "left" is basically the same idea, and the "right" supports conserving the Old Order, which was the founding principles of individual liberty, not collectivism. Indeed, Mussolini loved FDR and his New Deal, and the Nazis liked the Democrats' collective protection of the White Race and various eugenics programs. JFK was enamored with both Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Fuck the Left. You're lying weasels.
Get your guns out of my face, and we'll be OK. Otherwise, me and my ilk will be forced to stick our guns your faces. Get it?
Who will be along promptly to excuse this with some spurious claims. It never ceases to amaze me how some people are prepared cooperate in their own oppression. They are no different to the victims of domestic violence that continuously return to their abuser.
Go read about the history of Fascism
I've done that, extensively.
Actually that is true in two (seemingly contradictory senses). Firstly, Italian Fascism arose originally from a split from the PSI (as Mussolini -like socialists in most countries but unlike the PSI --supported the war (WWI) and as he was increasingly seduced by both Nationalism and Militarism).
Secondly, the success of the Party was predicated upon the growth of a membership who feared and hated Marxism (way, way beyond Mussolini's rejection of orthodox Marxism). The party blossomed as anti-socialist rushed to join when they saw fascist harassment of socialists, in what had originally been somewhat of an internecine fight. It was this flood, especially of rural anti-socialists which allowed the Ras to build their power base within the party. Indeed when Mussolini wanted to call the fight with PSI off, the reaction was such that he was forced, for a time, to resign his leadership of the party. Mussolini had learnt that, even though he had not intended it, the Fascist Party had become, first and foremost, the party of anti-socialism.
While the diametric opposite obviously resembles what it reflects, it's fallacious (if not mendacious) to classify fascism, --such as it was by the time the PNF was formed out of the PRF --as being of the Left. It had, it's socialist origins notwithstanding, become the very opposite.
the horrors of the last century were the inevitable Tyranny of the Left.
I think rather it was the Tyranny of the Extremes, Left (USSR etc) and Right (Germany/Italy).
Hitler himself publicly proclaimed the 25-point program
Because at the time he was the official party spokesman. And yes, he was also there when they decided on the plan. But it was not his politics yet, it was Drexler's.
Hitler (and early member) won the rest of the party over to his particular politics.
Which as I noted above, is better found in the pages of Mein Kampf, (where he explains his personal politics at length) than it is in the 25-point plan (drawn up when he was a relatively minor party functionary). Why resist this obvious truth? What's your motivation here?
As for the implementation of the socialist policies, Hitler's goal was to first to secure a strong Reich, and then to fully implement the socialist agenda
Nonsense. He clearly spelled out his intention to leave German industry alone, going so far on one occasion as to describe the large Industrialists as Übermenschen as well. Although your 'alternative history' claim is inherently unknowable (the Reich was not successfully established), there seems close to zero chance that Hitler would have embarked on a soviet style collectivisation of German industry. That's an untenable assertion completely without any documentary support (and no, the 1920 25-point Plan won't do here).
Either way, Hitler was a socialist.
Not just bullshit, but obvious bullshit.
As I've already pointed out, it was extremely clear, at the time, what side of the political divide Hitler was on: the anti-socialist side. Indeed, it is just as clear to every serious historian of the period. It is not serious scholarship to call Hitler a "devoted socialist," it's shameless propaganda.
As far as skimming Wikipedia, while it may not be the equal of my history education, it might do you some good. At least your argument would not need to rest on a single document, drawn up before Hitler was the leader of the party, and soon abandoned in practice.
They have to agree that his pay and performance are in line. Even a CEO has people he has to be accountable to.
You call someone swindling government and investors out of money with empty promises an enabler?
I call that a con man.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I once read the salary of an employee (or CEO) is based on their "replacement cost". There are of course other factors, like bargaining power, however it basically comes down to how much other CEOs make in a comparative market.
As long as CEO pay goes up nationwide, individual CEOs will also ask for (slightly) higher wages. And this will continue to feed in a never ending loop up an upwards spiral.
On the other hand the workers wages (especially for non-skill based positions) seem to be going down. As long as the trend continues, the "replacement cost" of workers would be very cheap for companies.
Even though these have become self fulfilling prophecies, the cycle can be broken by external factors. It probably won't be the government (since their good intentions do not fail to backfire, in miserable ways), but if the society as a whole demands the trends to move in the other direction, then they will slowly move the needles.
Unless you're translating for the Tesla longs here, your sarcasm detector may need a slight recalibration.
The reason they are paid so much is it is blood money. No would carry out the evil heartless unspeakable acts expected of them for a lower amount. It takes someone who's totally in it for the money and would sell out their own mother. This is also why the golden parachutes. Depending on what they get caught with/blamed for (as some kind of bad apple or something as if it wasn't endemic), they might just well become unemployable afterwords. So that huge amount of money is to cover the risk.
With Tesla, as with any religion, Poe's Law is in full effect.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So tell us, what actually is his salary? Actual salary, not the stock and options compensation typical of start-ups. It's a public company, it should be out there. Or are you yourself hand-waving to imply that he's one of those evil rich guys draining the business dry with his salary while his workers starve?
Ah yes, the old "CEO agreed to only pay himself $1 salary this year" gag.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
By demanding some insanely high minimum "living wage", what you are really doing is killing millions of small part time jobs that would otherwise exist and let people choose to work at the level they desired. Your train of thought is literally forcing people into full time jobs (since full time work are the only kind of jobs left beyond a certain minimum wage), the ones that can find them that is as lower end jobs shut down... truly you are a monster, nearly on the level of Stalin but honestly more cruel to your fellow man. You are forcing more people than ever before to be cogs at a time when everyone could truly be free, you seek to shackle and enslave them forever more. A pox on both your houses.
Well, here in the UK "living wage" refers to the hourly rate, just like "minimum wage". Obviously, if you only work 10 hours a week you're not going to be on the same as someone working 40 regardless.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Ernst Rohm, or effectively the number 2 of the Nazi Party. He called for a second revolution, after the first one, ie the events after the Burning of the Reichstag. It would involve nationalizing major industrial firms, giving workers more power over companies, and redistributing old estates. Rohm was purged in "The Night of Long Knives". The Nazi Govt tightly regulated private industry, and in many cases, outright stole from it, had national "People's Radios", "People's Car". There were state owned assets, such as the Prora resort for the "Strength Through Joy" program.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the initial assumption of your argument is wrong, and if you had read my posting, you would have noticed that I said the pension system survived both world wars. Which means it came into existence before the first one, which means the nazi party did not even exist, much less had anything to do with it.
The last part of your posting is such a pure gibberish that mumbo franco blubbo "macho" negative attitude, crap began because inlcuding long care so the sense mumfto babble AND THATS WHY!
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Economic inequality is inevitable, crucial and obligatory element of any healthy economy.
It is fair that Bezos has $100B and a lot of people have million times less. Exponential distribution of wealth is natural consequence of a free market economy.
Another crucial part of economy that the bottom of the pyramid has in some sense satisfactory economic state: a basic material state (food, shelter, sex, entertainment). That part does not come naturally, it requires deliberate ideological and material intervention from society in form of government subsidies, maintaining high social status of charitable people, etc.
Combining two of these things is the essence of regulation. It is much more difficult, more complex than two extreme historic alternatives: free market society and it's opposite we observed in Soviet Union, China and North Korea. There is a wide spectrum of societies that try to combine these two obligations with sometimes very inventive ways with very different degrees of success. This, again, proves a very simple fact: regulation is very very difficult and complex.
The idiocy of modern situation is that instead of focusing a lot of intellectual resources on researching and improving the regulation, the society is bent over backwards into maintaining a vicious circle of partisanship in United States (Europe is much healthier than that) where constructive dialog about what level regulation is impossible.
This roots in intrinsic absence of ideology in United States which results in corrupt politicians with "all I need is to be re-elected" written all over their narrow foreheads.
United States is ideological cemetery. The country where materialism have won.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Socialism
and the paedo DNC corrupt traitors who support it.
Send all the filthy America-haters to Venezuela now, before it's too late.
tick-tock
Biggly
I hope you have cancer if you support censorship also.
Orange is the new blue!
You? :p
Requiem for the American Dream
It doesn't matter. If you want to be at the top, start your own business and set your own salary. I'd bet a lot of the readers of this site make decent, possibly above average wages.
This. People fail to realize a company pays you what they think you are worth to the company. So if the board decides the CEO is worth $21m a year that is what they pay. If they decide the line worker is worth $10.25 / hour, that is what they earn. You get paid more if you are worth more, generally meaning, if you have skills or experience that isn't readily available on the market, or a track record of success, then you are more valuable.
CAPTCHA: evidence
I get it, you're one of the stupid ones. How's that Grab Them By The Pussy Party working out for you neo-nazi's?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
But, if you're really bothered by it, how about making stock options part of every employee's compensation package?
Here we go ... nobody understanding differential pay ...
What's funny is that nobody seems to mind that we pay absurd multiples of normal wages to people for merely looking good on camera, or their ability to move a ball down a field.
In fact, some of those same athletes and actors then have the chutzpah to lecture us about "income inequality" and those darn wascally wepubwicans.
It's a hoot ...
I did five years as a manager, and nobody can make me go back.
The idea that the top executive is an employee of the corporation has long ago faded. Now the top executive is more like a mafia don getting "a cut of the take," like the corporation is a criminal organization.
E Proelio Veritas.
These numbers are based on the Top CEO's and comparing them with their average employees, not All CEO's with their employees.
There is a still wage gap issue which should be addressed. But that can be addressed with minor tweaks such as profit sharing, and not by changing the entire economic system.
Currently there isn't a good tested replacement for Capitalism. Socialism is still capitalism, there are just more regulations. Communism has shown not to scale well, without having to bring in a lot of Capitalism elements to it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Usually when they talk about executive "pay" they mean total compensation. Much of that compensation comes from stock options.
Since the market is way up, so is total executive earnings.
Maybe they should give some stock options to the rank and file?
Look around you: most people are incompetent, lazy, and selfish.
Back in the 1960s, we had mostly competent people who were dedicated to getting the task done and getting out the door.
Now we have people who just kind of hang around the job for eight or ten hours then go home.
Idiocracy is here, and the few non-idiots get paid a lot to try to keep the rest from screwing everything up.
Alternative Right.
The Nazis didn't start Germany's social welfare system—Bismark did that back in the 1880s, before most of those guys were even born.
This.
The Nazis cut back the social programs put in by previous governments going back to the formation of the German state. Socialism was the first declared enemy of the Nazi party, long before they started on Jews they beat up and killed known Bolsheviks.
The closest thing the Nazis came to implementing a social program was Action T4, the forced euthanasia of anyone considered a burden to the state. People like the elderly, the infirm, the feeble (mentally handicapped), the deformed, so on and so forth.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Everyone with basic math can see this is not sustainable in the long run. The growth in US GDP is under 4% yet CEOs from the top companies rake in over 20% increase in wages.
For that to happen you got to take money from other part of the society.
But lets calculate how much they will earn 10 years from now with an average payrise of 20%:
$18.9m x (120/100) ^ 10 = $117m
20 years: $18.9m x (120/100) ^ 20 = $724.6m
30 years: $18.9m x (120/100) ^ 30 = $4486.5m
I wonder is these crazy greed at the top level will end peacefully or in revolution.
The CEO are incredibly bright hard working people so the get paid more. The low class worker bees are incredinly useless so they get paid less, and are being replaced by undocumented guest workers. Since the low pay wage slaves are basically useless drains on the greateness of International business, I propose that we fire the workers and let the CEOs types do all the work. By firing incompetant workers types with competant liberal East Coast business school types im sure we will increase shareholder value and productivity at the same time.
There's over 100,000 businesses in the US and this article focuses on 300 of them. Less than 1%. It's a rounding error. That's not how the majority of businesses are run.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
You should hate those rich bastards. Cmon! Lets hate them together. You all should rise up and beat the crap out of them. /sarcasm
All i see is divisive posts and commentary. These things have always existed. Why is now any different? Its always "how come they get all this? How do i take it away?" Nothing that says "lets strive for the best and work together?" Nonstop 24/7 2 camps. Hate hate hate
Reminds me of the story of the 2 wolves. The one that wins is the one you feed the most. Keep feeding your fear and anger...see how much better you feel at the end of the day..
"Socialist" is an odd term, and basically meaningless. Americans have been convinced that it's a synonym for communist. The National Socialist Party rose to power in Germany in no small part because of a fear of communists.
All that matters is liberty. You and your sticky-fingered proles can fuck off.
"From time to time, the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots." —Old Tom Jefferson.
While you and your greedy takers are busy "protesting" on the welfare tax money I'm paying, me and my productive makers (who are too busy working to be fucking around in the streets) are stockpiling arms. Thank the gods for the 2nd Amendment, the ultimate check and balance against the rise of the unwashed masses.
Dude, you have seen too many action movies. It's also funny how it's the poor who are greedy. Really? Then why do they have so little? And finally, your guns will not save you. There are more "unwashed masses" than you have bullets. If you continue to make money off the labor of other people, and give so little back, they will eventually come for you. Just as Louis XVI
Thou Shalt Not Covet
"I think the parents of teenagers should subsidize corporate operations because I'm a liebertarian."
a ruling class has always been able to obtain a disproportionate amount of wealth relative to the value they add. Whether it's kings and queens or the heads of mega-Corporations.
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All i know is the fuckwit with a private office that insists on taking his morning conference calls with the door open and the speakerphone at max volume doesn't deserve to make minimum fucking wage.
When i can hear everything, including the background conversations, from several rows away, CLOSE YOUR FUCKING DOOR! You overpaid pile of shit!
Fuck, he just got up and walked into the conference room next door to take a personal call on his cell while still leaving his distract-o-meeting running at full blast for the rest of us to enjoy. Seriously the revolution can't come soon enough...
What is needed is to restore some of the regulations that we put in place after Great depression, but reagan removed. In particular, it is long past time to block executives from buying/acquiring publically traded stock in the industry they are working. Iow, if they jump into a publically traded company, then no more obtaining stock/options, etc. They can, and more importantly, should, get employee stock. In addition, time to quit taxing corporate profits, but all dividends, bonuses, etc will be taxed at same rate as all else. Why? Because right now, corporations attempt to hide perks like cars, limos, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you don't agree with the CEO's salary being so high, shop somewhere else.
Don't like it? Quit and start your OWN company. No one said life is fair, no how many times your indoctrination instructors in school told you. Yes, it's not right that a owner of a company makes that much, but life isn't fair. The quicker you figure that out, the EASIER life will be. Socialism just brings down the achievers to the level of the non achievers, with the RULING CLASS the only ones with any wealth.
They're dumb fucks, is that really so surprising? This happened in part because of governmental tax policies that permit people to make unlimited sums of money while still paying a tiny portion of it back in taxes.
The other bit is the Lake Wobegon effect. All the CEOs are above average and should be paid above average salaries because why would you pay an above average CEO a below average salary? Because of that, you've got the rate increasing as they aren't all above average, precisely half of them are and only half of them should be paid more than the average. The remainder should, in fact, be paid less than the average.
Should have been "out of my ass".
It is obscene how much these few guys make, but come on - the real problem is that workers in the US work for peanuts.
I live in Switzerland. Here we respect both capitalism and human equality. There is no official minimum wage, but de facto almost noone has less than 3000-4000 USD per month.
Let's be real. Most everyone would take the CEO/Boss/Owner pay any day of the week. This comes back to jealousy.
Why doesn't anyone complain about what Congress gets paid and the benefits? Talk about royalty!
Also, if you want to be the person who takes very little compensation for working a top job in a company, go for it. It's up to you, just stop trying to force everyone else to do what you want.
Everyone? I knew who he was when I didn't for for him, same as the majority of other voters.
Unfortunately, that election wasn't decided by the voters, or even directed at the voters. It was decided by the electoral college, which punted on the responsibilities delegated to it in its conception, and consequently we got Trump for president even though Trump lost the popular vote by millions of votes.
McDonald's has about 1.9 million employees, and pays about $2 billion in income taxes. So that's about $1000 income taxes per employee.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Why does it matter if the CEOs make more? How does that hurt you?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
and it's not that Venezuela's government are angels, but we kind of ignore all the sanctions the United States put on it. We're also ignoring that they were a dirt poor country until the oil bonanza hit and that they were really only a functional 1st world country for about 50 years. It's not surprising their institutions couldn't survive the double whammy that was their only commodity's price collapsing and Sanctions imposed by the most powerful country on plant earth...
Incidentally the United States has used Venezuela's collapsing economy to seize a ton of their oil assets. If you think that's a coincidence, especially given North America's history with South America then, well, I'm not sure I'd call what you have naivete. There needs to be a stronger word for it. Maybe the Germans have one, they're good at that sort of thing...
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It's because they are 312 times or more better than you.
Indeed, it's almost historically low. Tight labor markets induce rising wages because workers have more bargaining power.
No wonder Democrats want an endless influx of illegal aliens to keep that from happening.
...misspelled "unless you suck on the Fox News tit" before...
Hitler killer Roehm because, as a flamboyant homosexual, he was embarrassing to other member's of Hitler's coalition (like the Junkers), and because, with his SA troops, he was a possible threat to Hitler's own power.
Socialist ideology had nothing to do with it.
> While you and your greedy takers are busy "protesting" on the welfare tax money I'm paying
I assume by "takers" you mean "people who actually do the work, but don't realize the profits from their productivity."
News flash: the working poor pay taxes too. If they got paid more, they'd also pay more taxes and there'd be less people on welfare.
Do what the Constitution already says: Restrict the various government's of these United States to transacting solely in Gold and Silver or their proxies (that is, remove the ability of the State to counterfeit).
This will force the governments to be honest with The People about the governments' financing, and thereby diminish the distortion of the Free Market in the long run (e.g., either people will have to pay more in taxes, or the welfare/warfare state will have to be dismantled).
I've read that if min wage kept pace with inflation it would be north of $20 right now...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
McDonalds is on FedGov welfare then and isn't paying the true cost of their employees. This has to stop.
Research shows that income disparity has NEGATIVE SOCIAL IMPACTS EVEN ON THE RICH.
Here's a TED talk on the subject.
How economic inequality harms societies | Richard Wilkinson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw
That just reveals your warped world view.
You don't pay the government "back"; rather, the government takes what it can get away with at the point of a gun.
Bad intentions get a gun pointed defensively in your face.
That's why the Americans have the 2nd Amendment, one of the most important parts of the checks and balances against Tyranny.
The question is, what performance difference does a $1M CEO bring vs a $21.7M one?
The real question is how much of the company results can be attributed to the performance of the CEO. That is not an easy question to answer in most cases. I have no problem with pay for performance but in a lot of cases their pay is negotiated long before any performance.
Actually, that's why automation is so great: it does away with the need of keeping those ugly people around. We don't need humans for menial jobs anymore. We're this close to eliminating the need for the 99% of workers. We will have paradise on earth, just not for you. :)
I honestly have no problems with someone being paid 40000x what I am being paid - whatever, I agreed to work for however much the company was paying.
You agreed to it because you didn't have a better option. If you don't see a problem with someone getting paid multiple orders of magnitude more than you when they are not creating a similar amount of added value to the company then you have no self respect.
So a CEO is making choices that affect all of the customers, and staff - obviously they still get paid very well.
Define "paid very well". When is it enough? How many multiple millions are does one need before one no longer is value added and start getting into amounts that actually hurt the company? I agree that pay should in principle be commensurate with the value added to the company but at some point too many companies start paying the people in charge amounts well beyond any possible value the could add to the company. Furthermore they negotiate these pay packages (including golden parachutes) before they ever work a day. Some CEOs probably are worth many millions a year but not very many of them.
No wonder the US is trying to legalise weed all over the place! If the people weren't so dulled on weed and Netflix, they might think about throwing off their shackles.
You just jelly Yurop with your entrenched classism and slavery to the Fifth Reich.
Unless, as a person, we want to pay them enough money to eat food, etc.
They would obviously have to be paid enough to live or people would not take that job. Do you truly not understand that basic fact?
Do you understand that is absolutely 100% incorrect?
There are plenty of people with jobs, yes full-time jobs, that don't pay enough to cover basic expenses. They make due by getting another part-time job, working 12+ hours a day, or working their second job during the "days off" they have from their first job.
Because that CEO hasn't given me a raise in 4 fucking years, yet he's gotten one every year AND a quarterly bonus. This fiscal year coming in a couple weeks will be the first year wages can move since being frozen those 4 years ago. You know how much I'm gonna get? 0.5%. A HALF A FUCKING PERCENT. During those same 4 years I have quadrupled my productivity because I do the work of 4 others who quit. Guess what? I'll be going too, and some one else will get to do the work of 5 people for that fucking half a percent. Your username is appropriate, I feel like slapping the shit out of you.
The "gender wage gap" is just a distraction invented by the media and universities to keep everyone's focus away from THIS ISSUE RIGHT HERE.
Men, women, stop fighting each other and unite to rise up against your greedy employers. Form unions (in secret, if necessary), hold strikes, and for fuck's sakes, don't go shooting yourselves in the foot by asking permission and seeking approvals to unionize. Just fucking do it, like your ancestors did when they were sick of dying in the coal mines for a mere pittance.
"The State Of The End Of The Millenium Adress", Bad Religion circa 1998
Neighbours, nobody loves you like we do.
Neighbors, your government has triumphed in finally making you a public fit for the 21st century.
Never before has a governing body shown so much concern for the economicwell-being of its subjects.
Today we have insulated you from countless factions who threaten your financial viability; such as the poor;
the idealistic foreigners still clinging to their childish notions of social welfare.
Why, you're even kept uninformed of useless propagandist journalism that reports alleged violations of
human rights (We all know they wouldn't have been punished if they hadn't been doing something wrong!!).
And who better to dispense such blatantly evident factoids but a self-appointed authority like myself?
Acid rain is a thing of the past... Too many possible causes, too little significance for our modern thinking public.
Besides, industrial manufacturing is at an all time low anyway, who needs those narrow minded
laborers. Too many mouths to feed, and to much burden on the pay roll!
Who needs 'em? Here in the land of the free-time.
Some other ass back-ward country will give us what we need by exploiting its uneducated children anyway.
The Internet has expanded our ability to pacify average Americans better than ever by offering fantastical adventures to
every corner of the imagination. Your home office is the window to your world and the heart of your social life.
Such reclusive behavior helps clear the roads and public works from overburden, like the lower middle-class and others who depend
shamelessly on their government.
Today you are freer than ever to do what you want, provided you can pay for it!
Remember, the first word in USA is US!
We have arrived neighbors, we are the privileged elite!
As in "you need to remove your head"?
....but that's how capitalism works together with those who own the capital (i.e., the shareholders).
If you don't like that ratio, change it at the next board meeting.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Related link: Fewer Than Half of Young Americans Are Positive About Capitalism
A human would not have done better.
'Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it' (Goebbels).
That's Fake News!
I stole this Sig
I don't care about your head. It is worthless.
BECOME A BOSS!
That is because my bosses are doing 312 times as many things as I do not want to do. God bless them!
My lottery ticket did not come good. That is money that I could have earned.
The change in this ratio is well-correlated with the activist Federal Reserve Bank (starting with the gold bug, LOL, Uncle Greenspan) then Congress exported family-supporting jobs so foreigners would buy their sleazy debt.