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It is the same story everywhere. Price hikes are extracting more from the customers, while the additional profits are not making it to the employees. There is a
by darth_avocado 3y ago
It is the same story everywhere. Price hikes are extracting more from the customers, while the additional profits are not making it to the employees. There is a parasitic middle man that is leveraging the narrative of inflation to profiteer.
- avs733 3y agoalongside the narrative of a recession (and layoffs) that seems to remain perpetually on the horizon...if any meaningful resistance begins to emerge
- avarun 3y agoWage growth has been over 6% for the last 2 years, with a cumulative 15%+ increase since the pandemic started.
- nonethewiser 3y agoThat’s good to hear
- sweeter 3y agoIt's closer to 3-4% and it's over shadowed by inflation by a bit. On top of that, corporate profits are higher than ever and workers are seeing less and less each year. That ridiculous profit is not trickling down
- soperj 3y agoHow much of that is Management?
- avarun 3y agoCEO pay was higher in 2000 than in 2021. https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1669300665686843392 https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1669300665686843392
- resist_futility 3y agoI mean it still doubled in 12 years from 1995-2007 while workers increased by ~10% based off that graphic. The stock holders are the only ones coming out on top with a more than quadruple in value since 1995.
- soperj 3y agoFrom the data in the post (https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1669300665686843392/photo/1 https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1669300665686843392/...) Actual compensation is higher than in 2000, and actual compensation has more than quadrupled since 1995. This post seems like more fun with math and stats and cherry picking dates(right before the dotcom bust) than anything.
- waboremo 3y agoYou'll want to look at worker's share of corporate income for the full picture of wages and prices, and that has not recovered since 2008.
- WalterBright 3y agoThe correct comparison is worker "total compensation", not wages. Total compensation includes the value of the benefits package, and is often an additional 40% over salary. The benefits package includes: 1. stock options 2. stock grants 3. health plan 4. 401k employer contributions 5. sick leave 6. vacation leave 7. maternity/paternity leave 8. employer paid social security taxes 9. other payroll taxes supposedly paid by the employer 10. retirement benefits
- quadrifoliate 3y agoLet's go through them one by one. > 1. stock options > 2. stock grants Very few regular people get these. Negligible if you consider the average worker. > 3. health plan I have not heard of an influx of health plans getting better over the last few years, have you? If anything, they seem to tack on more fees and deductibles every year. > 4. 401k employer contributions Negligible variations here, it's usually a single digit percentage. Haven't heard of a ton of employers suddenly upping these or anything. > 5. sick leave > 6. vacation leave > 7. maternity/paternity leave It's possible that employers have actually gotten a bit more liberal in these respects over the past few years. I am glad to see more companies acknowledging that paternity leave exists. > 8. employer paid social security taxes > 9. other payroll taxes supposedly paid by the employer Huh? How would this change my life for the better? Not sure this is a “benefit”, the employer wouldn't pay it if it wasn't legally required. > 10. retirement benefits You mean just the existence of a 401(k) plan? That's quite standard, few employers offer any sort of perks here; and they are usually large tech companies.
- jntvjnvutnuvt 3y agoThere is close to $1 trillion spent on Medicaid a year.
- ulfw 3y agoAnd I've been unemployed for almost that long as no one is hiring experienced Product leaders (or like recently offered me 80% less!)
- croes 3y agoAverage or median? And it seems inflation was higher so it actually wage shrinking https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-i...
- no_wizard 3y agoIt didn't beat inflation (at best it kept pace) on the whole. While even with some down turn the S&P is up 37%[0] by comparison and this is just using a relatively naive composite metric [0]: https://ycharts.com/indicators/sp_500_3_year_return https://ycharts.com/indicators/sp_500_3_year_return
- gsatic 3y agoActual parasites can't survive without extracting things from others. These middle men can survive without further exploitation, but they are like runaway processes trapped in a loop, they have no awareness they can exit.
- jntvjnvutnuvt 3y agoThis is not how the economy works. It is not a zero sum game.
- nimish 3y agoYou could even call it surplus value.
- boc 3y agoWhich is a good thing if you want inflation to eventually fall. Wage growth is the primary sustainer of inflation, which leads to the classic wage/price spiral wherein employees negotiate automatic increases in salary to keep up with predicted inflation. Inflation in the US today is still transitory in nature, but you can look at other countries to see examples of entrenched inflation. I’m not saying it’s a good outcome for society short-term, but if everyone kept getting raises to keep up with inflation, businesses would respond by continuing to raise prices.
- aaomidi 3y agoAnd other lies we tell ourselves. We are getting to a point where the majority of people can’t actually start their lives because of wealth inequality. Wealth inequality has only gotten worse in the U.S. in the past 10 years. The truth of the matter is, life does not have inherent value in the U.S. (and generally the world mainly because the U.S. drives world economic models). We’re entering an era where not as much human labor is going to be necessary, and our response to that is effectively starve out billions rather than spread the gains between our race. At some point this is either going to go full dystopia, where you’re only value is what you create and what you were born with. Or it’s going to go into a revolution with the heads of the rich on spikes. I know which one would at least feel better for the majority of people.
- titzer 3y agoWhen Elon's wealth peaked at $300 billion (at least on paper), I calculated that with $3 million being an extremely comfortable retirement, he could retire 100,000 times. It's an absolutely obscene inequality. And billionaires crow about taxes. Like, literally, if they took NINENTY NINE PERCENT of that wealth away, he could only retire ONE THOUSAND TIMES. STFU billionaires.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoDid you make a similar observation in the opposite direction when his wealth dwindled? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-net-worth-worst-loss-of-fortune-in-history-guinness-book-of-world-records/#textSome20estimate20he20lost20upin2020002C20according20to20Guinness https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-net-worth-worst-loss-... https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1591291952464801794 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1591291952464801794 I see this common pattern. 1. Stock goes up: "Oh no, they are stealing from us" 2. Stock goes down: Silence > And billionaires crow about taxes. Not just billionaires. Even non-millionaires crow about taxes. Fix the leaky bucket first before filling it up is a good strategy.
- senko 3y agoFrom the first sentence in the article: > Inflationary pressures mean businesses have faced price increases of up to 24 percent from tech vendors attempting to claw back margins. > the additional profits are not making it to the employees It's the businesses being squeezed here. What additional profits? If that business then hikes their prices, are they evil too?
- wilg 3y agoMy understanding is that this is termed “greedflation” and doesn’t appear to be an accurate theory on deeper analysis.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoThe present bastardized version of capitalism is broken. Everything is wacky and out of sync. The only people for whom money is still "real" are the ones who can't afford it. The rest are living in a world where money is unlimited and there are no penalties for abusing it.
- jntvjnvutnuvt 3y agoPrint trillions of dollars and then you can't figure out where inflation is coming from?