Get rich...or die

Sadly, this is getting closer and closer to being a fact

From the No Shit Sherlock Files:  A study from the Government Accountability Office shows that richer Americans are living longer than poorer Americans, and that while mortality rates in America are slowly sliding down, they are sliding down even faster for America's poorest 20%.

In a related study, the Economic Policy Institute notes that CEO compensation has risen 52.6% since 2009 (over 1007% since 1978) while the average worker has seen his pay rise by 5.2%, and it has actually fallen .2% the last two years.  Even worse, the study shows that this increase in pay has nothing to do with the talent of the CEO, and more to do with their ability to set their own pay (if only the rest of us had such a tilted field in our quest for a raise).

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but really, folks, this kind of imparity in our economic lives is just not sustainable.  Eventually poor folks are going to have had enough, and when they do, they are going to move mountains...right on top of their overlords.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

After a week in which it came to light that drug manufacturer Mylan has raised the price of the EpiPen (a lifesaver for those who suffer from severe allergies with reactions that result in anaphylactic shock) over 1000% (from $54 to $640) since 2009, and that during that same period, Mylan CEO Heather Manchin Bresch's (daughter of Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, and a huge WTF for that one, even if Sen. Manchin is a DINO) compensation rose from $2.4 million to $18.9 million (a 671% increase for those of you who aren't math majors), Bresch had the audacity to say that we shouldn't blame her but rather our broken healthcare system.

And just who the fuck does she think designed the system?

Because it certainly wasn't working class stiffs like us--no, it was Corporate America and its legion of lobbyists who set it up so that people like Bresch could feed at the trough filled by America's poor and middle class.

Keep in mind that there is a dollar's worth of medicine in each EpiPen.

Someday we need to teach these folks that greed kills--in more ways than one.

Peace,
emaycee

Stat of the day

According to a new study, the average American worker makes $37,000 a year, while the average CEO makes $12.4 million.

Anyone out there who thinks the person running the company you work for is worth 335 times a year what you are?

I know I've worked for some pretty shitty companies, but I'd be hard pressed to name an executive I've worked for who was worth even twice what I made, let alone 335 times.

Anyone know a company that sells pitchforks?

Peace,
emaycee

Takin' care of business

Anybody out there get a 15% raise last year?

Anybody out there think your company's CEO is worth 374 times more than you are?

If you aren't a CEO of an American corporation, there is a rock solid chance you answered no to both of those questions (especially the first one).

And yet, the AFL-CIO in its yearly Executive Paywatch report revealed that while the rest of us were making do with less than a 3% increase in our pay, American CEOs enjoyed a 15.6% increase in 2014.  And in the midst of growing concern over income inequality, American CEOs went from a 313-1 ratio to their workers pay to a 374-1 ratio.

What the fuck?  At a time when we can't even get our (republican) Congress to consider a raise in the minimum wage to just ten bucks?

If there were ever statistics that proved the game is rigged, these are probably those statistics.  Maybe I've just been unlucky, but I've yet to work for a company where the CEO wasn't at best a competent leader and businessman--and yet such executives are worth that much more than their workers?  Frankly, these sums are arrogance and egotism personified--sating the psyche of people who aren't nearly as good at what they do as their fantasies would have you believe.

Gonna make it kind of hard to have a lot of empathy for these folks when those pitchforks start a-swingin'....

Peace,
emaycee

Pity the fool

It's a welcome admission anytime a scion of executive leadership questions the compensation afforded to CEOs, as did former Kroger CEO David Dillon when he noted that executive pay has "...gotten a little extreme or a lot extreme."

Still...Dillon went on to explain the reasons for it, and cited my least favorite:  that the position is often "24/7/365."  You know who else has those kind of hours?  Policeman, firemen, and many doctors.  While doctors are amply compensated, none of them makes the kind of money CEOs make and arguably all of them perform jobs with a much greater significance for society as a whole.  And what the fuck--none of these so-called leaders ever heard of delegation?  Hell, I was a pissant store manager and when I went home  my assistant took over--yes, sometimes he/she had a problem they needed to consult with me over, but for the most part my day was done.  And you know what else?  No one puts a gun to these people's heads and makes them take the job.  Don't want a job that's 24/7/365?  Don't take it!  But please don't give me this bullshit that you need upwards of $10 million dollars a year to make up for it.

My guess is that it's mostly a ruse anyway--God knows I've had plenty of "executive leaders" over the course of thirty-one years in the business world who whined and whined over the hours they had to work but somehow never managed to answer the phone after 5:00 pm.

Peace,
emaycee

Quod erat demonstrandum

Exhibit A:  Increases in the minimum wage are good for the economy, insist Liberals.

Ta-da!  Recent analysis shows that states that increased their minimum wage on January 1st of this year are showing faster job growth than those states that did not.

Exhibit B:  Corporate CEOs are overpaid, especially in relation to their workers, Liberals claim.

Voila!  Recent data shows that CEO compensation has virtually no correlation with company peformance, i.e. higher pay does not mean higher company returns.  Pay for performance, or so they say.

Just sayin'.

Peace,
emaycee

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

This video should be on a continuous loop on television sets all across America:

But there's more:

• CEO pay is up 937% since 1978.  The rest of us?  10.2%.  How pathetic is that?
• Also in 1978, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay was 30-1.  Today?  300-1.  Anyone really think CEOs are ten times better than their workers over the last 36 years?
• If you're a minimum wage worker, CEO pay is 774-1.  That's like Earth to Pluto.

All of which probably helps to explain why there aren't many American workers whistling while they work anymore...unless it's to marvel at how sharp the guillotine is.

Peace,
emaycee

Good times (for CEOs)

A new report shows that last year the median CEO pay in America reached $10.5 million, an 8.8% increase over 2012, and a fifty percent increase over the last four years.

Any worker bees out there who have gotten a fifty percent increase in pay over the last four years from the company you work for?

Anyone?  Anyone?

The report also shows that the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay has now reached 257-1.

All you worker bees out there who think your CEO's efforts are worth 257 times more than your efforts, please raise your hand.

Waiting...

...Um, still waiting...


Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American trainwreck, Coda

And the beat goes on:

• Republicans across the country, from state legislatures to the U.S. Congress, are happy to help turn the rest of America into Detroit--they won't fund public education, they won't fund improvements in our infrastructure, and they won't lift a finger to combat our epidemic of gun violence.
• The republican party's assaults on ordinary Americans have gone beyond the pale--cutting funding for SNAP benefits in an historic economic downturn, spending $50 million trying to repeal Obamacare 40 different times, refusing to pass sensible immigration reforms, restricting voting rights with no basis in facts, restricting a woman's right to choose, and obstructing judicial and cabinet nominations in unprecedented numbers.  They do not have the best interests of anybody other than the 20% of Americans who make up their base, i.e., the Antoinettes.
• Looking for a job?  Don't read this piece--republican attacks on the working men and women of our country have resulted in record corporate profits while wages are falling, the middle class is getting smaller, McJobs are becoming the standard, unemployment is twice what we read, the cost of college is at historic highs, and income inequality is rivaling that of the Roman Empire.  Thanks, Donnie Downer!

And in the end, from the double standards on CEO performance to the Wal-Martization of our workforce, from the Senate's catering to the wealthy to the sequester's effects literally putting our lives at risk, from the republicans' war on ordinary Americans to the futility of our job market, it's all about fairness.

Whether it is economic justice, equality before our laws, or equal access to healthcare, any time a majority of a republic's citizens do not feel they are being treated fairly that republic--and especially a democratic republic--is in serious trouble.

It is my sincerest hope that the trend lines showing America's young people leaning to the left in massive numbers will be enough to eventually offset the inequality that the Reagan Devolution has brought us over the last thirty some odd years.

If not, it's going to make the French Revolution look quaint--the French, after all, were never promised an equal chance for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American trainwreck, Part 1

I've been reading a lot of depressing stories lately (thanks Alternet!)--time to share the sorrow....

What is it with republicans that whenever something goes wrong with a business or a municipality, they always blame the working men and women (usually over how much money we make--even though more often than not it's an extremely modest income)?  Seriously--we follow orders from our leadership, we follow their plans and outlines, but in the end, it's our fault?  What the fuck, right?

And if we are incompetent, or hurt sales, or make a major mistake, we get fired, and more often than not, since it was our own fault, we can't even collect unemployment.  It's either find a new job pronto, or starve.

Compare and contrast, however, with American CEOs--they run corporations into the ground with piss poor strategies, reduce earnings and profitability, watch sales decline, all with the business acumen of an armadillo...and they get a golden parachute worth unfathomable amounts of money and job offers out the watoozi for even more money.  And their employees end up with pink slips or are asked to forgo raises, or worse take a pay cut, all because of their leadership's utter incompetence. 

If we lived in a truly capitalistic society, these CEOS would get the same treatment we get when we can't do the job--a boot in the ass propelling us out the front door.

The only thing free about the free market in America is the free ride CEOs get.

Peace,
emaycee

I wish I knew

According to a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, American taxpayers are subsidizing CEO compensation to the tune of $14 billion dollars a year through tax deductions, accounting schemes, and tax deferrments.  One of the authors of the study notes that this comes to $46 for every man, woman, and child in America, and that it is comparable to all of us buying a CEO lunch.

I'd love to know where they're eating lunch, because in the emaycee household $138 would buy us lunch pretty close to ten times at the local Taco Bell, and maybe even more if we ate the $5 pizza at Little Caesar's a couple of times.

That being said, just who the fuck decided that allowing loopholes for uber millionaires and uber profitable corporations to write off even more of their riches was a good idea?  And can we make sure that the fucking idiot (s) is never let anywhere near the U.S. tax code again?

I mean, fucking really.  "Free" enterprise, indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

Thanks for clearing that up

Apparently, not investing in your company for the long term and laying off workers has another benefit for corporate CEOs:  that money can be used for stock buybacks which raise the price of stocks and help increase CEO bonuses!

I'm not sure which scares me the most about this trend.  It's either the fact that I read the piece and thought, "Holy shit!  That's exactly like the company I work for!" or that I have been saying for years that corporations lip service to "customers" is just so much bullshit because if they could find a way to make more money without customers, they would and now they've figured out how to do just that.

Either way, it's a lose-lose proposition for an awful lot of folks.

Peace,
emaycee

Raising our fists won't be enough

I can't say that news showing that 25 U. S. corporations paid more to their CEOs than they did in taxes is surprising in the least, and while I appreciate it getting the space and outrage it deserved on so many of the sites I read, space and outrage aren't going to end it or put any kind of a dent in it.  And I can guarantee you won't see any complaints from any traditional media outlets.

What to do?  It will be interesting to see what the UAW does in its current contract talks with Ford, as Bob King has mentioned on several occasions that the rank and file are not happy with the $26.5 million bonus Ford CEO Alan Mulally got after the Ford workers granted concessions too numerous to mention to help keep the company afloat--and that they want their share.  The members have authorized a strike, and I hope they keep that threat front and center--one has to doubt that Ford is going to want a strike as their fortunes continue to improve.

As for the rest of us wage slaves...stealth drops in productivity.

Can't hurt.

Peace,
emaycee

Don't you believe them...

Trust me, the next sound you hear will be not be tea party members, republicans, or conservatives complaining about how overpaid Ford CEO Alan Mulally is:  $26.5 million for 2010.  But, you know, $50,000 for a teacher, or a firefighter, or a law enforcement officer....I keep reading these pieces from conservatives telling us how everyone has made sacrifices and public sector workers should, too.  How about CEOs, guys?  Didn't think so (slurp, slurp).

Make no mistake--Mulally did a whale of a job, and Ford has really turned it around.  But $26.5 million worth?  As Bob King, UAW President, notes, it's "morally wrong."

And the worst part?  Reading Mulally trying to defend the indefensible, saying his pay was aligned with the company's performance, and was the "...way it should be."  Should be in what alternate universe?  Because unless Ford employees began shitting gold bars last year, it wasn't great enough to create that kind of salary in this universe.  Period.

Peace,
emaycee