Wha, Wha Income Inequality?

[WackyDan]

They earned it. Hardest workers on the planet.

Relative to what they produced for their employers and hours?

Wall street types, especially those in their twenties and early thirties work stupid long work weeks, have to know what they fuck they are doing (produce) and many burn out early.

They might get a 100k+ bonus on top of their base pay but I promise you that if they miss their targets they aren't getting bonuses and probably getting canned.

My bonus and commission structure is measured by the half year instead of calendar quarters. I get commission on an ongoing basis month by month but at the end of July I get my "True up" which reflects my total number over 100% and my commission owed. Added to that are commission hold backs on "challenges" where I designate specific opportunities I will close.

My true up at the end of last July was $39,000 before taxes. That was on an attainment of 240% of quota. I came in about 4 million dollars over quota. Any commission over 100% gets paid out at 1.25 with no cap. I'm a sales engineer so I make a great base and not as much commission as the actual sales reps do. 2nd half I landed at 117%. Now the risk is simple.... Not make my number in any one half and they can shit can me even if things were mostly out of my control... Or, we could have a bad half collectively, and I make very little commission. That is the risk. Now, I'm not saying CEO pay has the same formula as they can royally fuck over a company and still get their bonuses and golden parachute - But there are many of us paid professionals that work hard and our pay structure is based on commission/bonus structure due to performance. If you've never worked for that compensation plan then it might be hard for you to understand that it takes hard work, it takes brains and specific knowledge of your craft to be successful.

So... When the burger flipper can increase sales, production, etc two fold or more then yeah they are deserving of a bonus/raise.... Until then they are working a minimum wage job which is structured to facilitate the most menial of jobs, with little to zero education or experience required.

So the whole comparison of Wall Street bonuses to that of minimum wage workers is pretty stupid if you ask me.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and agree that the Wall St crowd works very hard. When a minimum wage fast food worker works, I see a hamburger produced. When a broker works, what is produced?

Fees

I'm more upset over Wall Street replacing pension plans with 401Ks. Take something low cost and put mutual funds in it's place. OVer 30 years, half your money ends up in wall streets pockets due to fees. I really am fed up with the USA at this point.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Relative to what they produced for their employers and hours?

Wall street types, especially those in their twenties and early thirties work stupid long work weeks, have to know what they fuck they are doing (produce) and many burn out early.

They might get a 100k+ bonus on top of their base pay but I promise you that if they miss their targets they aren't getting bonuses and probably getting canned.

I know one of these guys that retired before he was 40. He told me what his daily life was like and i was insulted at how stupid his job was. And this guy is pretty fucking stupid. Oh, and one of the most sociable people I know. Ya, his skill is basically he sold himself into a high paying job.

 

[WackyDan]

I know one of these guys that retired before he was 40. He told me what his daily life was like and i was insulted at how stupid his job was. And this guy is pretty fucking stupid. Oh, and one of the most sociable people I know. Ya, his skill is basically he sold himself into a high paying job.

Know what? I work with a few of those types too. Buddies from old days with their manager or director. They show up to work and do the bare minimum and somehow make their numbers out of freak chance or luck or the work of others... They exist in every profession but are not even in the majority.

 

[Exterous]

The people of the Detroit area aren't the looters but rather the victims. The City provided labor for the auto industry & ancillary business for many decades. It got old & run down in the process, with profit simply going elsewhere until it came to pass that just moving elsewhere was cheaper than fixing what they'd made, so they moved on to States who were glad to race for the bottom and to offshore production as much as possible. They added the flimflam of the ownership society, selling their real estate holdings in Detroit to occupants who couldn't meet the mortgages & small time speculators, then securitized the debt & sold it to investors, like the mutual funds in your 401K.

Detroit's demise wasn't an accident but rather a well orchestrated event decades in the making. It''s the same all across the rust belt from Missouri & Illinois to New York.

About the only thing correct you have in there is that it has been decades in the making. If only there had been a lot of articles about the Detroit issue for you to learn from...

Fees

I'm more upset over Wall Street replacing pension plans with 401Ks.

Why? Pension plans have proven to be a huge burden on companies, employees and tax payers. I am not saying 401ks are the best thing ever but pension plans have a pretty decent track record of issues unless you are in the 'at least i got mine before it got all fucked up' group (Good luck with your pension system Illinois...)

The PBGC has been taking over hundreds of bankrupt\hardship pensions a year and is projected to run out of money sometime in the next 10 years. They have been running at a deficit for 32 of the last 38 years. Who takes care of bankrupt pensions when the insurance company is insolvent?

Change political parties. Change president.

Wealth gap reaches record high...

'Hope and Change?"

Uno

I am not sure how much this weighs on the numbers but there have been a number of articles over the last several years about how a good chunk of the Middle Class pulled their money out of the stock market in 08 and waited until 2012,13,14 to get back in. IIRC something like 20% that had invested in 08 still haven't returned to the stock market.

Meanwhile they still have a good chunk of their assets tied up in a house 2x as large as the average home of the 1950s for a family that is smaller in size

 

[rudeguy]

About the only thing correct you have in there is that it has been decades in the making. If only there had been a lot of articles about the Detroit issue for you to learn from...

I just don't understand some people's need to write paragraphs about things they have no knowledge or understanding of. His post was one of the most uninformed keyboard pukes I have ever read.

PS: Come to the non dark side. We need good people like you and we need Detroit to fall off.

 

[Exterous]

PS: Come to the non dark side. We need good people like you and we need Detroit to fall off.

Move over there so I can get my car broken into? I think not

 

[rudeguy]

Move over there so I can get my car broken into? I think not

fucker

 

[Jhhnn]

I just don't understand some people's need to write paragraphs about things they have no knowledge or understanding of. His post was one of the most uninformed keyboard pukes I have ever read.

PS: Come to the non dark side. We need good people like you and we need Detroit to fall off.

The post in question was merely contrary to what you believe for no good reason other than being well indoctrinated in the wholesome goodness of rapacious capitalism at its best.

You have yet to provide any counter to it other than denial.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Change political parties. Change president.

Wealth gap reaches record high...

'Hope and Change?"

Uno

Oligarchy. I wish people would realize that their vote means nothing. Too many stupid people though so nothing will convince the Lemmings.

Someone ran in NY State somewhere and basically said that she is going to do what het 99% needs done and she won in an upset.

I swear, it would take one independent to run for office and they are to have one campaign promise. My door is open to citizens and Lobbyists can go elsewhere. In all honesty, I think we are eventually going to have a president that is an independent that runs on this and wins within 40 years. But within 20, we'll see members of congress do this.

I would vote for anyone that has one promise. 401Ks will have index funds only or we go back to pensions. And the other option is that people can invest in individual companies in a 401K. A missing options that has me personally pissed off.

 

[Exterous]

The post in question was merely contrary to what you believe for no good reason other than being well indoctrinated in the wholesome goodness of rapacious capitalism at its best.

I mean if you ignore the history of Detroit maybe. Seriously there are some really good freep articles that might show you the error of your ways if you cared to be even slightly enlightened about Detroit's problems

I mean your post completely ignores the effect that Detroit's success had on it. Detroit was built on an industry that, ultimately, started its decline. Without the success of the automobile the decentralization\suburbanization would not have started or certainly would have been at a drastically lower pace.

And of course the demand for even greater swaths of land to produce such successful products drove the automakers to leave the smaller city factories for larger spaces that the city simply couldn't provide

Not to mention the city adding even more employees in the 90s when the coffers were still full (ie profit was not going elsewhere despite your claim) but the population was dwindling

http://archive.freep.com/interactive/article/20130915/NEWS01/130801004/Detroit-Bankruptcy-history-1950-debt-pension-revenue

 

[rudeguy]

The post in question was merely contrary to what you believe for no good reason other than being well indoctrinated in the wholesome goodness of rapacious capitalism at its best.

You have yet to provide any counter to it other than denial.

I live here jackass

 

[Jhhnn]

I live here jackass

So, uh, what happened to the jobs?

We could ask the same question about Gary, Akron, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and a lot more.

The whole region has been pumped & dumped. the Job Creators have moved on, found a new squeeze in China, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia- anywhere but the US, of course.

 

[rudeguy]

So, uh, what happened to the jobs?

We could ask the same question about Gary, Akron, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and a lot more.

The whole region has been pumped & dumped. the Job Creators have moved on, found a new squeeze in China, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia- anywhere but the US, of course.

Detroit was more than in bed with the auto makers. The whole city was dependant on the industry. Not just the big 3 but also the suppliers and businesses associated with them. once NAFTA came around, the auto makers no longer needed Detroit. They could build in Canada and Mexico for a fraction of the cost of what Detroit was making.

The auto makers also found that they could build factories in the south and pay much lower wages. Instead of taking a pay cut, the UAW went on strike. This was the nail in Detroit's coffin. Production was shut down, vehicles were not produced, the auto makers lost massive amounts of money. The parts suppliers started dying. These were a huge employer in the city. Tool and die shops slowed. All kinds of businesses started dying.

Then the recession came. Detroit was already dying and the recession made it officially dead. At the same time the city officials were stealing money instead of trying to fix the issues. Jobs were going away every day, people could not get work, the government was corrupt. The city died.

Michigan's governor pumped money from the rest of the state into the city. The whole rest of the state supported the parasite that is Detroit. Detroit took money from the federal government, the state government, the residents, everyone. But it never did anything to bring back jobs. People moved out, in droves, in massive numbers.

Detroit killed itself by getting in so deep with the auto makers and the UAW that it had no choice but to die. By being a parasite without a host, it withered and died.

 

[Exterous]

So, uh, what happened to the jobs?

That is a long and complicated answer that it seems like you have no interest in learning about. There are many reasons cited in the article I posted for you and only a few are related to corporate decisions. And I don't know if a steady 60 year slide in jobs is a 'dump'

 

[Jhhnn]

That is a long and complicated answer that it seems like you have no interest in learning about. There are many reasons cited in the article I posted for you and only a few are related to corporate decisions. And I don't know if a steady 60 year slide in jobs is a 'dump'

Please. They're all related to corporate decisions. Detroit's woes & those of the 'burbs have a single root cause- job loss & de-industrialization. Add the machinations of Wall St "business decisions" & the complicity of City leaders to apply the coup de grace.

Detroit got the same treatment as Greece in the swaps as lending scam.

 

[Subyman]

Publicly held corporations must migrate to lower paying areas if they have the capacity to do so. It is the government's job to regulate the economy as to better protect everyone, since a purely capitalistic society without any restrictions is a hell hole. The big auto makers aren't going to stay around in Detroit paying X% more per employee for altruistic reasons. That is absurd and to frame it as the automaker's being malicious to Detroit is strange.

 

[Jhhnn]

Publicly held corporations must migrate to lower paying areas if they have the capacity to do so. It is the government's job to regulate the economy as to better protect everyone, since a purely capitalistic society without any restrictions is a hell hole. The big auto makers aren't going to stay around in Detroit paying X% more per employee for altruistic reasons. That is absurd and to frame it as the automaker's being malicious to Detroit is strange.

That's perfectly framed to justify the actions of the lootocracy, the same sort of attitude about "business" as Michael Corleone.

It's what a few decades of propaganda can achieve in the promotion of the divine right of Capital. It''s what happens when business interests are superior to national interests & the interests of the People.

 

[Subyman]

That's perfectly framed to justify the actions of the lootocracy, the same sort of attitude about "business" as Michael Corleone.

It's what a few decades of propaganda can achieve in the promotion of the divine right of Capital. It''s what happens when business interests are superior to national interests & the interests of the People.

You have issues with publicly held companies then.

 

[Jhhnn]

You have issues with publicly held companies then.

I have issues with the framework in which they're allowed to operate.

 

[DeepPurple]

It's all about revenue generation. however, you should note that 80% of the US makes under $75K a year. You live paycheck to paycheck in a very small apartment for that in the NYC area.

 

[Sonikku]

Wouldn't it be funny if everyone breaking their backs for a pittance everyday to make things for the economy "smartened up" on how the system works and went into wallstreet/banking/finance/ to work the system like these gentlemen?

 

[Exterous]

Please. They're all related to corporate decisions.

Please tell me how the strong highway infrastructure system around Detroit and the desirability of the newly accessible suburbs and lower property taxes of the suburbs were related to corporate decisions. (Hint: The government actively encouraged suburban growth in the 40s and 50s due to overcrowding in Detroit)

What corporate decision prompted the city to issue 13th checks derived from nearly $800 million in excess earnings from 1985-2011 that could have, instead, been used to shore up the pension system?

What corporate decision forced the politicians to block the cancelling of these disbursements when the pension fund really started running into trouble.

What corporate decision spurred the city to hire more workers in the 90s instead of balancing the budget? The city staff swelled to 1 worker for every 51 residents. (Only 11 cities in the entire US had a higher ratio)

Detroit's woes & those of the 'burbs have a single root cause- job loss & de-industrialization.

Really? You might want to call the Detroit Free Press (and all of the other local Detroit newspapers\stations), the NYT, the WSJ, Forbes, PBS, The Washington Post, The University of Michigan, Lawrence Tech University etc etc etc to let them know they - with all their research and facts - are wrong because they ALL disagree with you

 

[Jhhnn]

Please tell me how the strong highway infrastructure system around Detroit and the desirability of the newly accessible suburbs and lower property taxes of the suburbs were related to corporate decisions. (Hint: The government actively encouraged suburban growth in the 40s and 50s due to overcrowding in Detroit)

What corporate decision prompted the city to issue 13th checks derived from nearly $800 million in excess earnings from 1985-2011 that could have, instead, been used to shore up the pension system?

What corporate decision forced the politicians to block the cancelling of these disbursements when the pension fund really started running into trouble.

What corporate decision spurred the city to hire more workers in the 90s instead of balancing the budget? The city staff swelled to 1 worker for every 51 residents. (Only 11 cities in the entire US had a higher ratio)



Really? You might want to call the Detroit Free Press (and all of the other local Detroit newspapers\stations), the NYT, the WSJ, Forbes, PBS, The Washington Post, The University of Michigan, Lawrence Tech University etc etc etc to let them know they - with all their research and facts - are wrong because they ALL disagree with you

You've gone into the realm of the deliberately obtuse.

Those sources don't disagree with me at all. They simply dwell on factors that made the fiscal situation worse for Detroit, not on the root cause of job loss & capital migration.

Capitalism wore out Detroit & Michigan in general, along with a lot of other places, moved on leaving people to fend for themselves. Detroit made a lot of mistakes when that happened, mostly when they looked to Wall St to help 'em out. Wall St, the great nexus of Capitalism, used the opportunity to throw a drowning man an anchor, made oodles of money doing so. Hell- they're probably still making money from the swap deal.

It's not quite like the Godfather- they won't make you a deal you can't refuse, they'll just make you a deal you can't understand until it's too late.

 

[Exterous]

You've gone into the realm of the deliberately obtuse.

Those sources don't disagree with me at all. They simply dwell on factors that made the fiscal situation worse for Detroit, not on the root cause of job loss & capital migration.

Wait - is it job loss and deindustrialization, corporate decisions or job loss and capital migration? These three things are not the same (job loss can be separate from corporate decisions as can capital migration and capital migration includes more than just corporate money movements) but you keep writing them as if they are

If you want to lump everything into capital migration then you would be correct because that includes everything from population moves (driven by a wide variety of factors) to government fiscal mismanagement

As for those sources NONE of them cite a root cause because there is no singular or even dual root cause. If there was a greater contributor to the decline it would be population loss hurt Detroit far far more than job loss but even that is only a partial cause. To say that job loss was solely or even the majority fault of corporate decisions is to ignore the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

Population loss started in 1950 well before job loss became a major factor. Even of those jobs that were 'lost' the vast majority moved less than 8 miles away. The population loss was driven by an overcrowding of Detroit and lagging infrastructure (Which swelled in WWII but the money for infrastructure projects was slim for obvious reasons. Housing and roads built during this period were of inferior quality and were starting to notably deteriorate by 1950). Racial tensions (which started in 1943 in earnest) also served to drive population out. The extension of I-94 into Detroit in the late 40s enabled easier access to the suburbs.

If job loss were, indeed, the primary motivating factor in Detroit's decline we would see a steady decline in Detroit's finances or population to match. However, that is not the case. There are many periods of financial stability and a dramatic slowing of population decline not consistent with the job loss trend. Without going into an even longer explanation about the incredibly well documented and systemic mismanagement of relatively strong finances (Detroit was doing quite well in the 90s) it is accurate to say that the driving cause of Detroit's decline in the late 90s-today is not the result of job loss but ineptitude, corruption and 'kicking the can down the road' by the political leaders of Detroit

Of course you are welcome to provide actual supporting evidence or proof that there was a singular or even dual root cause in the decline in Detroit. I remain skeptical that you will even find a single article or paper supporting your claim because there is not a single source out there that I can find from a notable source that gives credence to such a narrow viewpoint