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No Rise In Incomes? Just Don't Tell These Guys
In the aftermath of the abysmal start to the 2014 holiday selling season, one thing has (or should have) become abundantly clear: America's middle class, which refuses to lever up to idiotic proportions as the memory of 2007 and the subsequent crash will remain all too vivid for a generation, is dying a painful death, best summarized by the following WSJ chart of spending and income patterns. What should be immediately obvious is that even as spending has picked up fractionally since the start of the depression, incomes have not, which is, in a nutshell, the heart of the US economic problem.
So yes, 99% of American's population may be dumb, as per Dr. Gruber, but at least they have seen their per capita incomes go absolutely nowhere, even as their spending has actually risen modestly.
But for every 999,999 losers there is 1 winner. And since America has quite a few multiples of "999,999", here, thanks to James Montier, are all the winners of Bernanke and Yellen's central planning:
Now, who else can't wait to find out just how much of a bigger chart we are going to need when the data from the 2010-2019 bucket is finally available?
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Yezir. flat as pancake.
Http://www.hedgeaccordingly.com
<==EACSBBBON&OCC&EAS [earnings AFTER corporate stock buy backs based on NIRP&other crony capitalism&EnronAcctStandards
<== EBITDA [earnings before interest taxes depreciation amortization]
I know an exponential growth curve when I see one. That thing is doubling every ten years.
"Yezir. flat as pancake."
At least someone is keeping even with inflation.
Ask the Lucent Technology management how their options worked out.
It'll have to wait a day. I ate at McDonalds last night.
They were bad at looting... that's a critical skill-set for the modern executive. Not everyone is "C-Level" material.
I am libertarian so I am going to walk a fine line here. The moronic socialist-leftist-collectivists are incompetent on economics which is why their countries always will fail over time.
However, I live in the real world and I work for corporations and I will say the CEO thing does not surprise me at all. Greed does not exist as an economic concept but it does exist as a very real moral concept.
What we see with the modern CEO is a sort of brass ring-lottery ticket mentality. None of these guys are as good as their paychecks indicate. My proof is the S&P 500 over any time period but 50 years is generally enough. Fifty years ago GM was the biggest company in the world. By 2011 it is a welfare queen. How many well paid CEO's went through it over that time as it continued to underperform? Also, how many utterly brilliant Wharton, Columbia and A-business school grads went through that company with great pay packages? Probably tens of thousands. None of them stopped the eventual disintegration until the tax payer was forced to bail them out.
The basic things that make a CEO are not the same as those who found the company. They are good at the sort of animal instincts of working an organization, up through the levels, protecting their record, padding their resume's and similar things that actually have no bearing on better products or services. Once, they and their cronies reach the top levels they use the company as their personal piggy bank. If the company is failing they leave with a handsome package. CEO has become the best job in America. If you do crappy you leave with a nice paycheck and severance and are filthy rich. If you succeed, you leave with an enormous pay package and become obscenely rich even though you were not a founder. Your buddies on the board are other CEO's and you have a gentleman's agreement to do the same for each other.
Look up names liken Nardelli (Home Depot), Hank McKinnel (Pfizer), William McGuire (United Health), Lee Raymond, (Exxon) and a host of others. These guys went home with enough money to make at least three generations or more of their family wealth even if they have Paris Hilton type kids. McKinnel got paid the same in retirement as his working salary. We can think of a few who actually got prosecuted like the Tyco CEO (name?) but most everything is actually legal.
I do not like or trust the financial structures of corporations. They dilute stock, screw up dividends and play financial smoke and mirror games on top of mediocre management. But, win, lose, or draw they pay themselves well. They pay themselves for performances that would get you and me fired at times or at least career-limited.
The finance guys are always the last ones to come in and rip the company up for salvage.
Who you callin' stupid?
You cunt. shut the fuck up!
OK
Feels sooooo good doesn't it?
Market manipulation is necessary. With wages flat, if 401ks and union pension funds lose 1/2 or more of their value, the sheeple will surely be annoyed.
where's my pitchfork??? !!!
TAX REVOLT
TAX REVOLT
TAX REVOLT !!!
The rich get poorer, i mean
Corporate earnings are at record highs. Wages are stagnating. The 1% is very happy and you want them to pay even less taxes? LOL.
Actually, the reasons for all that are not greedy CEO's, it is stupid leftist government. Corps are in the stable mode where they have maximized their efficiency and match output to demand. The only thing that will help the middle class, white and blue collar is an improving economy, i.e., demand increases. Otherwise, their is no increase in the demand for labor which is one of two things that drives up wages.
50K per year isnt much considering todays expenses.
every year or so they decide that we must manditorily pay for something new.
remember auto insurance was optional?
remember healthinsurance was optional?
you cant even survive without a cell phone or the internet. try applying for a job lately? "You must apply online"
edit
insurance is a hidden tax.
inflation is a hidden tax
property tax!?!? it really never ends man
Auto insurance is "optional" for about a third of drivers. Just don't get stopped.
In their cancellation notice, GEICO pointedly notifies you that they will notify your state's motor vehicle department that you are no longer insured by that company (yeah, personal experience). Why would they do that? Aren't they on your side? (/S)
Auto insurance, health insurance are mandatory probably because so many people are "judgement-proof" (i.e.-- flat broke with no tangible assets) these days.
What a racket: gov+ins put the squeeze on for quick cash now against future losses only victims pay...
But, w. gov't still being slow and fragmented, today you can roll the dice and still come out ahead, baring extreme misfortune.
There is also the flip side where the State may report your $150 speeding ticket to them after which they will raise your rates at least 50%. It's a nice mutually beneficial relationship.
GREED...
CEO pay is only that high because we have less but bigger companies. Capitalism is most effecient with maxium competition...enforce monopoly laws and break up big biz. of course if i get to be a CEO i'll totally change my tune.
Competition is sin (J.D. Rockefeller).
Capitalism is about avoiding competition.
Market economy != Capitalism.
LOL, you failed to ask the obvious followup question-- WHY do we have fewer but bigger companies?
No, the reason that CEO pay is so high, is that in the 80s, they figured out how to loot the shareholders using stock options.
Regarding the question you failed to ask: when companies get looted, do they get weaker, or stronger?
What happens when companies get weak? Maybe they fail? Maybe they get taken over?
Does that result in more, or fewer, companies overall?
BONUS QUESTION: when industries get more concentrated, do the remaining companies get more or less powerful? Do they generate more or less lootable profits for their executives?
Yes, that is when they created the method of backdating options, as well.
Conversely, I remember loading up on Pfizer stock around 2008/9 because it was in the tank but the dividend was approaching 6%. The share prices was hovering at $14-17/share. I got laid off used part of my severance because i could win on both stock appreciation and the divicend. Pfizer like most pharmaceuticals prided itself on never lowering the dividend.
The new Obama-loving CEO, Jeff Kindler (who had no background in pharma) cut the dividend in half and the stock fell to about $11. That is when I began to thoroughly hate CEO's and the general management of corporations. Stay with them as long as the founders are in place, then run, as investor or employee.
I gloated a little when a douchebag former friend thought he was rich with stock options back in 2000-2001. Stock tanked from $120 to $5 in a matter of a few months, long before he could exercise. And, it's gone.
He along with the udda mugs got vaporized.
Why were you happy other than he was not a nice guy? Was he the CEO who caused the crash?
Serious question re: "Exhibit 4" chart: Does anyone still use M to signify thousands anymore (as opposed to Millions)?
A mil is still 1000 in Spanish...
And oro is gold still in spanish, right? Ole Oro!!
yes, the vatican does. M is the roman numeral for 1000. numbers are a conspiracy by the vatican to mark all humans with the number of the beast.
Little people don't know what to do with money.
It takes CEOs to realy know what to do with that real money. CEOs like Jim Crammer....
Wondering outloud what the Chinese export of 'Inflation' will add to the elemental crucible of compound USSA part-tyme consumerism... where the $Tree/ $Store hang-up the Single for a $'Two$fer'$....[?]