Income Disparity

The news reports and protests about income disparity seem to have died down quite a bit. I think those discussions are very important.

There will always be income disparities between CEOs and the regular workers and there should be since the CEOs are in charge of companies that need to make money to stay in business.

My problem with income is not so much the disparity as it is the way things have been going for decades.

We see news reports and hear politicians speaking about the United States worker being the most productive in the world and I believe that. We get reports about how much more efficient and productive workers have become. All very true. My question is, if workers are more productive and more efficient it means that they produce more in a shorter period of time or with fewer resources. That is a very good thing. So why the HELL have salaries been going down??

We are a capitalist country and I fully believe in capitalism but the capitalism that made this country great through the 60s, 70s and 80s was stakeholder capitalism where the company, the employees, the customer and the stockholders were equally important.

Today we live in a world of shareholder capitalism where the stockholder is king and everything else gets thrown under the bus to make sure that they get returns on their money with percentage rates that were unheard of in years past except by loan sharks and organized crime.

I have no problem with profits. Not even with huge profits but I believe that is time that corporations start looking around and rewarding the little guy that does the grunt work and makes everything possible.

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Today's economy

So we are told the economy is coming back. For those that invest I suppose it is to a degree but the stockholders to a great degree contributed to the problems we have. Yes it was the banks and investment companies that created those idiotic investment vehicles that crashed and burned but that was as an answer to the investors that are never happy with the income they are getting.

Investors are putting their money at risk and are certainly entitled to expect a return on that investment but most investors today are looking for a guarantee. You can get a guarantee by going with bonds and very safe investments but not high rates of returns. If you want a high rate of return then a RISK is involved because high rates of returns are acquired by investing in things that are new and not proven for the most part.

Corporations are very much at fault too because they allow themselves to be coerced into making foolish decisions based on the investors. Everyone wants to know what kind of return they are going to get right now rather than what the outlook is long term.

We have all seen stories recently where stocks for companies tumbled because the increase in profits was not as high as expected. There was indeed an increase in profits, in some cases very nice increases but it was not enough so they sold off the stock and caused it to tank.

Investors are their own worst nightmares creating self-fulfilling prophecies. If companies had the common sense and the guts to do the right thing we would not be in nearly as bad a shape as we are.

Look at incomes for employees. In an awful lot of companies the employees are not paid enough to actually be able to afford the product being sold. Some companies do offer steep discounts to employees and in some cases free services but that is not helpful. Incomes have been actually falling in general for some time. I realize that incomes can not continuously go up dramatically although many CEOs and stock holders do feel the same way.

We need to step back a bit in time to when the middle class started to become a reality because if the middle class goes away those who are making a ton of money are going to be very, very unhappy because who will buy the products and services that are giving them their income.

Henry Ford was absolutely demonized by other manufacturing leaders when he decided to pay his workers 5 or 6 dollars a day telling him it would ruin them. He told them he was paying that much because anyone that wanted to buy one of his cars needed to make that much. His philosophy was also to make the best possible product, for the lowest possible price, while paying the best possible salary.

Now what many companies do is the exact opposite. They provide a product or service that is just barely good enough to prevent them from being lynched while paying the lowest possible wages.

I have no problem with companies making a profit, but there really should be some common sense. Any CEO that runs a company in great prosperity deserves a very nice salary but things have gotten a bit rediculous. There are CEOs of companies that make in some cases almost 1000 times as much as the rank and file within the company and then they wonder why people get upset.

Washington seems to be much the same. Our legislators in Washington make around $175,000 dollars a year with the best health care and a full pension for not doing a whole awful lot. It is also obvious to anyone with a brain that they cater to the corporations rather than their constituents for the most part because if they didn't then companies would have no incentive to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying. And who among us has the ability to set our own salaries and benefits?

I am not advocating socialism or communism or anything else in particular. I want common sense and a sense of reality to be brought to the halls of power both in government and in business.

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Corporations

Has it occured to anyone that most large corporations are now becoming the Robber Barons of old? It was disregard for the workers and pay rates that were not capable of sustaining a realistic way of life that brought the unions to power.

I am not advocating unions because I have been a union member and, at least in the case of the place I was working at the time, the union did nothing but take dues. That being said I can see a revolt of workers coming. The problem with this is that the corporations will just thumb their noses at us and offshore the work.

I am not making a rant against outsourcing because there is absolutely a legitimate use for it.

What I see coming is that the CEOs of the large corporations are making this country backslide into a developing nation again. We were at one time the greatest nation on earth and everyone wanted to live here so they could have the American Dream.

The American Dream now is the ability to be able to put food on the table and a roof over your families head. Not too many people are looking at the old dream of a house with a yard and several children because no one can afford it anymore.

Does anyone at all besides me see a problem when the CEO of a company makes over 1000 times what the front line workers that do all the work are paid?

I certainly see an issue there and hopefully enough people to make a difference also see a problem.

I am truly not pushing socialism but there needs to be a point where people start to stand up and say "Wait a minute. That is just not right!'

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