US CEOs enjoy 40% pay rise

[Cutlass]

Just because many companies sucked at picking the top talent doesn't mean the economic principle that has created that competition is in play.

What competition? It's all in who you know. Not in what you can do.

 

[Traitorfish]

And no reply to question about "wealth-creation"?

*cough*

 

[downtown]

Companies will not resume hiring--ever--until the risk level goes down. Either the profit margin goes up, or the cost-to-hire goes down, or the bailouts come back. Nothing else will cut the mustard.

Or they make up the difference in margin by increasing volume...which folks can't do, because demand is shot...because wages have been stagnant for over a decade, and now we have high unemployment.

Marketplaces change all the time, and you can be perfectly profitable with lower margins.

An economy is not a static system. It's dynamic and advances with time. People laid off will be unemployed temporarily. They should find jobs in other sectors of the economy. For example, with advances in technology, you get a larger proportion of the labor force working white collar jobs, as opposed to blue collar jobs.

Are you implying we should guarantee jobs to workers at certain industries and maintain a static proportion for the division of labor?

The average period of unemployment in the US is now over 6 months. The transition from blue to white collar isn't exactly an instantaneous one, and the newly trained worker is still going to be at a disadvantage in the labor marketplace.

The downward pressure on wages and employment isn't something that is just felt by blue-collar guys losing their jobs to innovation and globalization. It's hurting nearly every sector of the economy...from teachers and academics, to white collar consultants, to entry-level seeking college graduates.

 

[Tenochtitlan]

The average period of unemployment in the US is now over 6 months. The transition from blue to white collar isn't exactly an instantaneous one, and the newly trained worker is still going to be at a disadvantage in the labor marketplace.

So?

The downward pressure on wages and employment isn't something that is just felt by blue-collar guys losing their jobs to innovation and globalization. It's hurting nearly every sector of the economy...from teachers and academics, to white collar consultants, to entry-level seeking college graduates.

I was talking about a specific phenomenon regarding how the advance in technology affects the division of labor

 

[Crezth]

I don't accept your premise that becoming a CEO is risk free, but even if it was, I don't see any problem with it. By the way, many CEO's are the ones who founded the business in the first place.

Even if it WAS risk free? What constitutes "earned" income to you?

 

[downtown]

So?

Because we imperil our economic growth as a country when we let wages stagnate and large segments of the population sit outside the workforce. We've let our retraining infrastructure rot because it is "too expensive", and now we're going to run the risk of not being able to afford the services we sell.

 

[JollyRoger]

By the way, many CEO's are the ones who founded the business in the first place.

Not at the high end. The founders get bored with the risk free status of the company, sell off to a more risk averse group, and move on to some real risk.

 

[innonimatu]

The downward pressure on wages and employment isn't something that is just felt by blue-collar guys losing their jobs to innovation and globalization. It's hurting nearly every sector of the economy...from teachers and academics, to white collar consultants, to entry-level seeking college graduates.

And that is a very good thing, because it:
- dispels the myth that education will solve the unemployment problem;
- gets many white-collar bastards who cared nothing for the problems of "less qualified" workers in the same sinking boat.
- may actually weaken the ingrained idea that some jobs higher status that others and the people doing them therefore "better" that the others. The despised ones started with farmers, then manual laborers/blue-collars, now it's moving to services and even to people with the precious "college degrees". It's about time for that kind of social discrimination to get a good shake.

 

[El_Machinae]

The technologist in me wants to create a world where no one need work.
The capitalist in me drools at the idea of advancing economic growth.
The meanie in me doesn't want people to get money if they're not working.

There's a bit of an issue there. If there's economic growth sufficient to put people out of work (ostensibly, the people can be replaced by technology faster than they can retrain), and I want a world where people don't need to work ... how am I going to balance that with the idea that people are supposed to work?

 

[Cutlass]

To add to your quandary, that's why incomes across the scale have to go up as technology replaces labor. Because only in that way do you increase consumer demand enough to generate replacement jobs as old jobs are lost. However, the steadily rising consumer demand is something the many environmentalists would like to stop, because they believe it is unsustainable.

 

[Traitorfish]

The technologist in me wants to create a world where no one need work.
The capitalist in me drools at the idea of advancing economic growth.
The meanie in me doesn't want people to get money if they're not working.

There's a bit of an issue there. If there's economic growth sufficient to put people out of work (ostensibly, the people can be replaced by technology faster than they can retrain), and I want a world where people don't need to work ... how am I going to balance that with the idea that people are supposed to work?