Brexit

[cm husker]

I'm all for reining in executive pay by active shareholders. But, as someone who has to regularly deal with c-level execs, there's often more disparity in talent than is understood by watchers. Good executives add exponential value to companies. And that talent is and should be competed for by company owners.

 

I feel like people are trying to treat symptoms but that's causing us to clumsily hurt new, young, innovative competition and not really at all getting at the heart of the perceived problem.

[Guy Chamberlin]

 

The real culprit -- along with the related exodus of manufacturing jobs -- is the huge wage inequity between upper management and workers. It's been growing for 35 years and some say it's easily traced to the supply side revolution of the Reagan years. Turns out that rising tide didn't raise all ships at sea. It just made management believe that its new and exponentially higher compensation was business as usual. Catering to the short term whims of stockholders didn't help, either. That's where the middle class got spanked.

 

The hard-working America we yearn for included executives who lived quite nicely at 100x their employees' compensation, rather than 1000x.

 

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-inequality-continued-its-35-year-rise-in-2015/

A disparity in income doesn't necessarily mean the tide isn't rising for all.

 

From a quality of life and sol perspective, the gap between rich and poor is smaller than ever.

 

 

That simply isn't true. The disparity is clear, as are the consequences.

 

The diminishing security and lifestyle of the American middle class is a pretty big thing according to everyone running for political office.

 

Lots of other well-researched articles if you don't care for the one I provided.

[cm husker]

 

 

 

The real culprit -- along with the related exodus of manufacturing jobs -- is the huge wage inequity between upper management and workers. It's been growing for 35 years and some say it's easily traced to the supply side revolution of the Reagan years. Turns out that rising tide didn't raise all ships at sea. It just made management believe that its new and exponentially higher compensation was business as usual. Catering to the short term whims of stockholders didn't help, either. That's where the middle class got spanked.

 

The hard-working America we yearn for included executives who lived quite nicely at 100x their employees' compensation, rather than 1000x.

 

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-inequality-continued-its-35-year-rise-in-2015/

A disparity in income doesn't necessarily mean the tide isn't rising for all.

 

From a quality of life and sol perspective, the gap between rich and poor is smaller than ever.

That simply isn't true. The disparity is clear, as are the consequences.

 

The diminishing security and lifestyle of the American middle class is a pretty big thing according to everyone running for political office.

 

Lots of other well-researched articles if you don't care for the one I provided.

Access to food, medicine and other necessities are cheaper, especially in terms of man hours required, than ever before.

 

Do some struggle? Absolutely. But overall, people are much better off today than in 1970.

 

Oh, and to the politicians like sanders and trump, who run on a populist platform, and to Clinton, who pays lip service from her expedience platform, there's a lot to gain by telling people they are getting screwed and politician X can fix it.

[Guy Chamberlin]

I'm all for reining in executive pay by active shareholders. But, as someone who has to regularly deal with c-level execs, there's often more disparity in talent than is understood by watchers. Good executives add exponential value to companies. And that talent is and should be competed for by company owners.

 

I feel like people are trying to treat symptoms but that's causing us to clumsily hurt new, young, innovative competition and not really at all getting at the heart of the perceived problem.

 

Right. It would be up to shareholders to protest, but shareholders' interests don't necessarily align with healthy, longterm economic growth. That's part of the problem, too. And why Warren Buffett has managed to stay ahead of the curve.

 

Actually, new young innovative competition has been kicking ass for years, now. The Silicon Valley ethic is engineering driven, libertarian leaning and a self-policing meritocracy. They are calling the shots, not suffering from imposed limitations.

 

And yeah, C level execs can add exponential value. But the exponent used to be 100 instead of 1,000 and the huge flow up money up to a tiny percent of the population has had unfortunate repercussions.

 

And the C level execs who drag companies into the ground and/or commit overt crimes never seem to get punished, and that is a disheartening model for the hard-working, under-compensated and jail-prone population.

[cm husker]

By the way, I scanned through the article and didn't see where it addresses my argument, which is that a wage gap is not reflective of a standard of living gap.

 

I freely admit there's a wage gap now. It's been growing for 200 years with only a few interruptions. I really don't care about the wage gap, but rather the wealth gap is more concerning. But wealthy people are happy to focus on taxing the hell out of young up and comers' incomes as long as we don't focus on wealth, especially generational wealth.

 

There is a statement in that article (which is quite heavy handed) that I do agree with:

 

"This rising inequality is largely the result of big corporations and the wealthy rewriting the rules of the economy to stack the deck in their favor. This has prevented the benefits of productivity growth from trickling down to reach most households."

 

That's absolutely true, but the solution isn't more big government that the wealthy will use to write rules to their favor. It's less government. And more competition.

[cm husker]

 

 

I'm all for reining in executive pay by active shareholders. But, as someone who has to regularly deal with c-level execs, there's often more disparity in talent than is understood by watchers. Good executives add exponential value to companies. And that talent is and should be competed for by company owners.

 

I feel like people are trying to treat symptoms but that's causing us to clumsily hurt new, young, innovative competition and not really at all getting at the heart of the perceived problem.

Right. It would be up to shareholders to protest, but shareholders' interests don't necessarily align with healthy, longterm economic growth. That's part of the problem, too. And why Warren Buffett has managed to stay ahead of the curve.

 

Actually, new young innovative competition has been kicking ass for years, now. The Silicon Valley ethic is engineering driven, libertarian leaning and a self-policing meritocracy. They are calling the shots, not suffering from imposed limitations.

 

And yeah, C level execs can add exponential value. But the exponent used to be 100 instead of 1,000 and the huge flow up money up to a tiny percent of the population has had unfortunate repercussions.

 

And the C level execs who drag companies into the ground and/or commit overt crimes never seem to get punished, and that is a disheartening model for the hard-working, under-compensated and jail-prone population.

I'll cut to the part that I can wholeheartedly, or at least mostly, agree with, and that's your last paragraph. I do wish there was a better way to structure rules so that people have to internalize risks and consequences.

 

The only reason I don't offer unqualified agreement is that I don't think there are as many unpunished criminal acts happening as would be assumed.

 

I do agree that we have an over incarceration problem. But that's for another thread. I will just say that one stat thrown out without much thought is the % and total # of Americans in jail versus other countries. We have something like 5% of the worlds population but 20% of the jailed criminals. That's thrown out a lot as a problem and indicative of over incarceration, but in actuality it's likely more reflective of under incarceration in other countries.

 

A large portion of my pro bono work is with immigration, particularly unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers. I can tell you that there are portions of south and Central America and Africa where horrendous crimes simply go uninvestigated and unprosecuted, let alone does the country spend the money to keep them locked up.

 

Just saying that as an example of how some "glaring" stats, like income inequality, can actually mean something very different.

 

One last last note, if the concern is that productivity gains are properly shared among the masses, then let's address that on its own rather than clumsily shove minimum wage and other regulations down the market's throat, when we know that such regulations benefit the big competitors more than workers and consumers.

[HuskerShark]

The answer to the "wage gap" issue is not in government intervention to regulate the top or bottom income earners through taxation or otherwise. Instead, the true solution is in actually teaching our young people the things that would actually be useful to know. So instead of memorizing dates and other useless info, students should be learning how to budget, balance checkbooks, keep financial records, and then receive hands on experience in a variety of industries, including pairing students with successful entrepreneurs if that's even remotely in their interests. That will have a WAY more lasting effect than government mandates and regulations.

[Guy Chamberlin]

The answer to the "wage gap" issue is not in government intervention to regulate the top or bottom income earners through taxation or otherwise. Instead, the true solution is in actually teaching our young people the things that would actually be useful to know. So instead of memorizing dates and other useless info, students should be learning how to budget, balance checkbooks, keep financial records, and then receive hands on experience in a variety of industries, including pairing students with successful entrepreneurs if that's even remotely in their interests. That will have a WAY more lasting effect than government mandates and regulations.

I totally agree about teaching young people useful information. We could be doing so much more than babysitting. But again, it's not like you have to choose. Sensible taxation and incentives can coexist nicely with more pragmatic education.

 

I wouldn't pretend more government is the answer to everything in the same way I'd never assume unregulated free markets would fix everything. This is the classic false dichotomy.

[HuskerShark]

Free markets have to be regulated within reason, or people simply are allowed to abuse the system. That i agree with you on. I think we just disagree on where the line should be drawn on what is too much government intervention.

[cm husker]

Why can't they be self regulated? There are many industry associations that could do a much better job than the government has done. And as long as you foster strong competition, including by entities outside the association, they can't collude. Instead, it will move toward reliable information for consumers, who are the best regulators in the world.

 

When I hear, "free markets need to be regulated to some degree," I'm left wondering what that means.

[cm husker]

I'm left wondering why elected officials should be drawing the line and not individual citizens as consumers.

 

And I'm all for a robust legal system that allows the injured to hold the actual wrongdoers liable for bad acts, whether in an unregulated or highly regulated market.

[HuskerShark]

When i think regulation, i think very minimal. For example, make sure all workers are citizens.

 

I'm sure various industries have a need for some regulation so they don't end up corrupted but that's what I'm thinking about.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Wow. We have so many examples from over the centuries of companies not self-regulating because they don't care and don't have to.

 

It was only in my lifetime that companies were told they could not poison the rivers used by people and wildlife downstream, or render the air we all share dangerous to breathe. They argued that it would be too costly to fix and make it hard for them to compete, and their fellow industrialists had zero motivation to self-regulate. Citizen consumers hardly had the resources to fight them. If you don't remember how grim and unhealthy major American cities were in the 1960s and '70s, it's been a stunning reversal, led by activists, driven by government regulation and now accepted as the status quo by people who conveniently forget how we got here.

 

Inviting in outside and competitive companies has hardly stopped collusion, and again, the industry generally comes running to the government to arbitrate. The pharmaceutical companies, for one, hate being regulated but rely heavily on the government to step in when both domestic and international competitors threaten their patents. Pretty much every industry with intellectual property issues isn't keen on self-regulation because --- surprise! -- you can't trust your competitors. And consumers are too busy and uninformed to initiate action, though they are an incredibly powerful force when the stakes are explained to them.

 

I'm almost certain you're cherry-picking on the OSHA issue and missing the larger point, but I'll have to look into that.

 

Honestly not sure what planet you guys have been living on.

[cm husker]

When i think regulation, i think very minimal. For example, make sure all workers are citizens.

 

I'm sure various industries have a need for some regulation so they don't end up corrupted but that's what I'm thinking about.

Why do workers need to be citizens.

[funhusker]

Because people shouldn't have to work with drug dealers, rapists, and underwear models....