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Don't assume that this would happen overnight. Real wages have been essentially flat for median workers since the early 70s, while CEOs have greatly increased

by klyrs 4y ago

Don't assume that this would happen overnight. Real wages have been essentially flat for median workers since the early 70s, while CEOs have greatly increased their own real salaries and companies have made a greater focus on short term profits and dividends for their stockholders. The common justification I see for 100:1 CEO to median income gaps is that "CEOs provide value to the shareholders." They do that specifically by depressing the wages of their employees to make room for dividends. And it's not like any of the above is some shadowy conspiracy. It's the mainstream practice that is literally taught in business schools worldwide and championed by politicians, most famously by Regan and Thatcher. You're paraphrasing the "trickle down" theory yourself.

finspeech 4y ago
> Real wages have been flat for median workers since the 70s Real wages for workers in what context? The US? The industrialized nations? Perhaps the better explanation for this (assuming it’s true) is that the median worker in industrialized nations has had productivity that has grown at a slower rate than the median worker in developing markets. Would be interesting to see what the worldwide statistics are for CEO to worker pay. > They do that specifically by depressing the wages of their employees to make room for dividends. Can’t “workers” also be shareholders? If not in their own companies, then at least in any publicly traded company. The world isn’t cleanly divided into “worker” and “owner”. People can be both. And again, those dividends have to go somewhere. My original post applies here, where it either gets hoarded or invested, and no matter which one happens, it is beneficial to the consumer at large. I’d consider “trickle down” to be quite the misnomer. I think “trickle up” is more apt because in the end, all it means is that the people who make the money in the first place, get to decide what they do with it as opposed to being taxed and sending their money off to a centralized (often divided and inefficient) govt to decided what to do with it.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > Can’t “workers” also be shareholders? If not in their own companies, then at least in any publicly traded company. The world isn’t cleanly divided into “worker” and “owner”. People can be both. Yea but most people aren’t. Lower-income people barely have retirement accounts with index funds in it. The people that are “owners” in a meaningful sense are not workers.
  - finspeech 4y ago
    Yeah, but there are plenty of people who do own assets. It’s not just the 1% that owns all the assets. Plus, the market, and peoples’ places in it are not static. Many lower income people are lower income due to the fact that they are young and don’t have the knowledge/experience of their older peers. They don’t stay that way. They are able to earn more and save/invest more as they level up their skills

by klyrs 4y ago

finspeech 4y ago

> Real wages have been flat for median workers since the 70s Real wages for workers in what context? The US? The industrialized nations? Perhaps the better explanation for this (assuming it’s true) is that the median worker in industrialized nations has had productivity that has grown at a slower rate than the median worker in developing markets. Would be interesting to see what the worldwide statistics are for CEO to worker pay. > They do that specifically by depressing the wages of their employees to make room for dividends. Can’t “workers” also be shareholders? If not in their own companies, then at least in any publicly traded company. The world isn’t cleanly divided into “worker” and “owner”. People can be both. And again, those dividends have to go somewhere. My original post applies here, where it either gets hoarded or invested, and no matter which one happens, it is beneficial to the consumer at large. I’d consider “trickle down” to be quite the misnomer. I think “trickle up” is more apt because in the end, all it means is that the people who make the money in the first place, get to decide what they do with it as opposed to being taxed and sending their money off to a centralized (often divided and inefficient) govt to decided what to do with it.

vineyardmike 4y ago
> Can’t “workers” also be shareholders? If not in their own companies, then at least in any publicly traded company. The world isn’t cleanly divided into “worker” and “owner”. People can be both. Yea but most people aren’t. Lower-income people barely have retirement accounts with index funds in it. The people that are “owners” in a meaningful sense are not workers.
- finspeech 4y ago
  Yeah, but there are plenty of people who do own assets. It’s not just the 1% that owns all the assets. Plus, the market, and peoples’ places in it are not static. Many lower income people are lower income due to the fact that they are young and don’t have the knowledge/experience of their older peers. They don’t stay that way. They are able to earn more and save/invest more as they level up their skills