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> Record profits across the board for corporations, highest CEO pay ratios ever recorded, massive housing bubble; the monied class is making off with their spoi
by ethbr0 4y ago
> Record profits across the board for corporations, highest CEO pay ratios ever recorded, massive housing bubble; the monied class is making off with their spoils and cashing the stock market in
> Meanwhile they are sticking it to consumers
That's a lot to parse, but I'll give it a try.
"Record profits across the board for corporations" - Record profits is exactly what you would expect with lingering low interest rates + lowered rates from COVID response + unleashed demand post-COVID. This was by design, because profitable companies don't fire everyone and create a recesssion from unemployment. Or tank the stock market and thus housing market and thus create a recession.
And you're a quarter out of date. Profits and margins have been compressing in Q1 2022 and look to continue.
"Highest CEO pay ratios ever recorded" - Exactly what you'd expect with a roaring stock market, given equity-biased compensation. That will correct, as it always does.
And furthermore, talent compensation is already increasing and on every HR department's priority list. [0]
"Massive housing bubble" - Low interest rates + stimulus + lack of supply + sudden demand spike = price spike. Fed rate hikes will cool this off fairly quickly.
"The monied class..." - You mean, everyone?
"... making off with their spoils and cashing the stock market in..." - Reallocating and diversifying assets?
"Meanwhile they are sticking it to the consumers with inflation..." - Who is "they"? Some generalized bourgeoisie who control the means of production and arbitrarily set prices?
See earlier point (and google for statistics) and margin compression for what's actually happening: companies are passing along less than all of their own cost increases.
[0] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/pulse-survey/executive-views-2022.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/pulse-survey/executive-vie... (I hate big-4 management consulting pablum, but it's a quick distillation)
- Folcon 4y agoI'm following along with your breakdown, but I'm not clear what point you're trying to make here? > "The monied class..." - You mean, everyone? Are you asserting that you believe the parent is using "The monied class..." to mean everyone? Which doesn't seem to be the case. Or are you asserting everyone belongs in "The monied class", if so, that seems so overly broad as to be a bit ridiculous?
- ethbr0 4y agoTo me, the subject of "the monied class is making off with their spoils and cashing the stock market in" seems intentionally generically-bad, so as to be outrage-driven agreeable to everyone. Are we talking about the hyper-wealthy? Business owners? Business managers? Investors in general? It's unclear. There are a lot of complicated things going on and being generically angry at people with "more" money is uninformative and unproductive. As near as I can tell, the parent's policy prescriptions amount to (1) we should allow asset bubbles to pop harder, (2) we should have created less(?) or more strictly controlled(method undefined?) COVID emergency debt, and (3) we should implement price controls for consumer goods(?).
- titzer 4y agoFrankly, it IS outrageous that a few dozen or hundred people own more wealth than 50% of the population. It would be one thing if that wealth was well and duly earned, and well and duly enjoyable. But when an individual commands hundreds of thousands of lifetimes of wealth[1], an unimaginable sum that they cannot even physically enjoy in their time on Earth, and at the same time both pursues more money and tells us that they should be taxed less, I call fucking bullshit! [1] At $300 billion supposed net "worth", Elon Musk could retire ($3 million a pop) literally 100,000 times over. Or, he could retire, not making another cent, and live one hundred thousand times better than the average person. If his wealth only grew at par with inflation, he could literally spend $100k a year for three million years. The fact that this much money is earmarked for this person, or any person really, is only possible because the enormous pyramid schemes they are able to set up which are paid into by speculative investors. In my frank and honest opinion, there are NO words you can say, NO ideas you could have, NO labor that you could undertake, and NO buttons that you can push that morally justify the tax on humanity's subsequent activities that funnel that much wealth to you. Hands down. And with that money you have zero goddamn problems that justify you offering policy input that personally benefits you. We should shun such money addicts, not lionize them.
- slaw 4y agoYou should thank Fed for pumping up stocks and keeping interest rate below inflation.
- wbsss4412 4y agoThe monied class isn’t everyone, the fact that you would suggest such implies you aren’t aware of the distribution of wealth in the US. 10% of households own 90% of the stocks held by households. Close to half hold none at all.