Tag Archives: ceos

I predicted this one….

Well…there are a couple of things that I want to talk about today…the first is a neat little study that was done that compared the increase in productivity with the increase in wages since the 1980′s….where the projection of wage increases, if they had kept up with the increase in worker productivity, would have resulted in the median wage for the American worker being almost 100 percent higher than it is…what this says is that even though the American worker is working harder and longer, the fruits of this work increase has gone entirely to the top whose wages HAVE increased by 100% in that same time frame.

The second part of this nasty little secret is the sluggish performance of the American economy and my prediction that if the war on the American worker continued by slashing wages and benefits, and moving jobs overseas, there would be no one left to buy the 40 thousand dollar SUV’s and it would result in a feedback loop that would result in an economy that would never recover; but would remain stagnant over time since the majority of the economy is consumer spending. Exactly what is happening now; no one in the middle class is willing to spend anything since they don’t have any extra money anymore…it’s all in the hands of the rich and powerful who don’t purchase enough to keep the factories moving…and I am going to say this to the short sighted CEO’s out there who are lining their pockets at the expense of the entire American economy….I hope you feel good about yourselves…you’ve managed to destroy an economy that was the envy of the world…hope you can’t sleep at night…geez…

I’ve had lunch….

Well…I’ve had lunch and have been watching Man U play but it’s halftime and I thought I’d get a few more ideas down. Have been looking for the Chuck Krauthammer article from a couple of days ago but have had no luck….so I can’t comment on that idiot…I really don’t know what else to talk about……oh, there is one thing, why aren’t companies that are sitting on all that cash looking for ways to expand into new markets? If I remember my college econ….the way to maximize profit is to get into new markets first or to create new markets that no one else has recognized yet. It doesn’t take much work to just sit on your hands until all of the excess capacity in your business is taken up by the recovery, but it does take smarts, vision, and guts to go out and lead the market by making a bet on what you think is going to be the next big thing. That means building new plants, hiring new talent, and opening the checkbook to grow your business. I think it’s one of the things that is currently missing in our economy; no one is willing to take any risk since the ceo’s stand to lose if their ideas aren’t successful. But that’s the problem…the ceo’s get exorbitantly rewarded for caution so why would they do anything different? There is plenty of talent just sitting on the sidelines waiting for that vision but it won’t be there forever….geez…

This has been troubling me…

Well….as I said in an earlier post, I am trying to lower the outrage quotient and try to be a more reasoned voice…in fact, the name that I proposed for this site was “A Reasonable Voice” but when my son was putting it together for me, he thought the title should be “Overeducated and Unemployed” and when I got a look at the first template, I had to agree. It also made me laugh…
I know this isn’t the topic that I promised but sometimes I have to write what is in my head or I’ll lose it…I promise the one on the political middle tomorrow.

There were a couple of articles in the newspapers over the last couple of days that made a connection in my brain that I haven’t seen anywhere else so here goes….of course, you know about the Supreme Court decision giving corporations the same rights as citizens to give money to political campaigns? Then today, I read that the profitability of corporations is back to where it was before the economic meltdown and they are sitting on “mountains” of cash but no one is investing to create more jobs. This could be a leap, but with the rights that corporations have been given as “citizens”, doesn’t that mean that they have responsibilities, too? And not just to their shareholders, but to the society as a whole? I’ve talked about the flipside of the people screaming and demanding their rights; that it has to be balanced with the responsibilities to this society.

I think it also points out the fallacy of the reliance on the private sector to create jobs where there is no check on their power to do whatever they please….using the Chinese model to wrestle more and more work out of the individual; thinking only of their bottom line and of the obscene bonuses that are granted to their ceo’s while they complain about “government interference”. If they are being interfered with, why are their profits the same as when the Bushies were running the show? Geez….

How much profit is enough?

Well…this is one that I have been thinking about for quite a long time now…and this post was inspired by the simple thing of trying to find a softsided, 12-pack cooler to replace the one I’ve had for a few years. For months now, I have searched and searched every store in the area, looking for one that was made in the USA to support my fellow workers but I got to the point that I just gave up and bought one that was made in China. As an aside, since I lost my job at a local furniture manufacturer for the stated reason that my job was no longer needed, (and I guess the 15 million dollars per year in cost reduction I gave them wasn’t either), I have become a more conscious consumer; trying to buy American when possible but also making note of how the retailer treats their employees. Needless to say, I will never shop at Walmart. I can’t believe that all consumers are only motivated by price, but the choice of supporting our fellow Americans has been taken away by CEO’s whose only motive is more and more profit and the resulting bonuses that accrue to them from that profit. Personally, I would have paid 30 to 40 percent more for the cooler if it was made in an American factory that paid a living wage and healthcare to their workers….so those workers would be able to buy American made things that could put me and many like me back to work.

What if, instead of hundreds of millions of dollars going to the CEOs, a company would take, say, half of that and invest it in an American manufacturing plant that would employ 2 to 3 thousand workers? Would Ford’s stock price have plummeted if it had made 1.5 billion dollars and put on 10 thousand more American workers instead of the 2 billion it made? Yeah, I know it would have because the stock price is driven by the greed of the traders who could make a lot of money by shorting the stock and who don’t give a damn about anything except their next bonus and the new BMW…but I think that distorts decisions that would be made if they didn’t have to think about Wall Street.

When are we, as a people, going to stand up and say no more…no more billion dollar payouts for one hedge fund trader, no more CEOs making hundreds of millions while all they do is lay off people and line their own pockets? No more political protection for oil companies who make obscene, record profits and ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Geez…

Oh, if you’ve read this post and remember that I drive a 1993 Mazda and have the urge to call me a hypocrite, don’t…because the Mazda was made in a Ford plant in Flat Rock Michigan by American, union workers….and it has almost 300K miles on it..that’s what I call quality….