CEO Pay Up 27% While Worker Pay Stalls...

[kalm]

-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

Nice cherry picking, AJ. Now read, understand, and agree with the other 1263 pages of "The Wealth of Nations" and maybe we'll have something to share.

Yeah, he didn't really mean that.

[Baldy]

Nice cherry picking, AJ. Now read, understand, and agree with the other 1263 pages of "The Wealth of Nations" and maybe we'll have something to share.

Yeah, he didn't really mean that.

Nor the other 1263 pages.

[kalm]

Yeah, he didn't really mean that.

Nor the other 1263 pages.

I'm sure jelly left out the jk at the end of that chapter.

[Baldy]

Nor the other 1263 pages.

I'm sure jelly left out the jk at the end of that chapter.

ok...

[AZGrizFan]

And I can guarantee you by the time my accountant is finished, I don't pay nearly 35% of my income, and every single thing he does is legal and within the norm. He is very good at finding me legal but creative ways to cut my tax bill. I don't pay him all of that money for nothing. And he earns every penny of it.

Right..!!!
I don't know anybody who pays 35% tax - Not one person

Listening to a highly paid American complain about taxation is really a joke - but I guess somebody has to keep up the ruse and carry the deception forward....

It's less about the PERCENTAGE that I pay and more about what they (the gov't) do with the wheelbarrows full of cash that I send them every year.

[Chizzang]

Right..!!!
I don't know anybody who pays 35% tax - Not one person

Listening to a highly paid American complain about taxation is really a joke - but I guess somebody has to keep up the ruse and carry the deception forward....

It's less about the PERCENTAGE that I pay and more about what they (the gov't) do with the wheelbarrows full of cash that I send them every year.

That's NOT what you said (but anyway)

my point is - and this is very true
Wealthy Americans do not pay a larger percentage of their income as taxes
Indeed they more frequently pay lass percentage than your average middle Income earner

A guy making $75K is in the 25% bracket and does a fairly simple return
A guy making $175K is in the 33% bracket and can get that 8% difference back in about 10 different ways

and this is the truth and you know it

so stop your bawling you've got it easy brother and you know it

[AZGrizFan]

It's less about the PERCENTAGE that I pay and more about what they (the gov't) do with the wheelbarrows full of cash that I send them every year.

That's NOT what you said (but anyway)

my point is - and this is very true
Wealthy Americans do not pay a larger percentage of their income as taxes
Indeed they more frequently pay lass percentage than your average middle Income earner

A guy making $75K is in the 25% bracket and does a fairly simple return
A guy making $175K is in the 33% bracket and can get that 8% difference back in about 10 different ways

and this is the truth and you know it

so stop your bawling you've got it easy brother and you know it

BUt when you make $500,000 like I do most of that 8% in difference is phased out....plus, that guy making $75k with a family of four gets almost ALL of his 25% back.

[Chizzang]

That's NOT what you said (but anyway)

my point is - and this is very true
Wealthy Americans do not pay a larger percentage of their income as taxes
Indeed they more frequently pay lass percentage than your average middle Income earner

A guy making $75K is in the 25% bracket and does a fairly simple return
A guy making $175K is in the 33% bracket and can get that 8% difference back in about 10 different ways

and this is the truth and you know it

so stop your bawling you've got it easy brother and you know it

BUt when you make $500,000 like I do most of that 8% in difference is phased out....plus, that guy making $75k with a family of four gets almost ALL of his 25% back.

You are completely full of sh!t.... but very entertaining

[AZGrizFan]

BUt when you make $500,000 like I do most of that 8% in difference is phased out....plus, that guy making $75k with a family of four gets almost ALL of his 25% back.

You are completely full of sh!t.... but very entertaining

I need somebody to mow my expansive lawn. You interested?

[Chizzang]

You are completely full of sh!t.... but very entertaining

I need somebody to mow my expansive lawn. You interested?

I am extremely interested....
As long as you're off foreclosing on properties and embezzling
I'll hang around and service your lawn and the fabulous "V"

Thank you
I'll be right over

[AZGrizFan]

I need somebody to mow my expansive lawn. You interested?

I am extremely interested....
As long as you're off foreclosing on properties and embezzling
I'll hang around and service your lawn and the fabulous "V"

Thank you
I'll be right over

She's spent. The pool boy just left....

[Chizzang]

I am extremely interested....
As long as you're off foreclosing on properties and embezzling
I'll hang around and service your lawn and the fabulous "V"

Thank you
I'll be right over

She's spent. The pool boy just left....

Crap... it looks like I'll have to do this then

[JohnStOnge]

What you're saying makes perfect sense if we operated within a free market economy.

I'd missed that response before. I am going to list the basic points of the post to which you responded. Which, if any, do you think are false given the current system?

1) Technology has been a factor in increasing worker productivity.
2) The total income of all Americans is not a fixed quantity.
3) The total wealth of all Americans is not a fixed quantity.
4) It is possible for the median wealth of the entire population to increase while, at the same time, the median wealth of the top 1% of the population (or some other small percentage) increases by a much greater percentage than the median wealth overall does.

[JohnStOnge]

There is a village with 10 households. Each household owns a farm. The farms produce wheat and they each produce 10,000 bushels per year. One farmer finds a new cultivation technique. One year he alone produces 100,000 bushels while all the other household farms produce 10,000 each.

Whereas the wheat wealth production used to be uniform (each household with a 10% share), one farmer now controls about 53% of it. But nobody has lost any wheat wealth. There has been no "redistribution" of wheat wealth. Instead, the total wheat wealth of the village has increased by 90%. Nobody has less wheat wealth as a result of one farmer now having a much greater share of the total wheat wealth than anybody else does.

And that parable illustrates the fallacy of the practice of bemoaning something like CEO pay increasing at a faster rate than "worker" pay as though it automatically means that CEOs have automatically "taken" something from workers and/or that there has been some kind of "redistribution" upuwards.

[kalm]

What you're saying makes perfect sense if we operated within a free market economy.

I'd missed that response before. I am going to list the basic points of the post to which you responded. Which, if any, do you think are false given the current system?

1) Technology has been a factor in increasing worker productivity.
2) The total income of all Americans is not a fixed quantity.
3) The total wealth of all Americans is not a fixed quantity.
4) It is possible for the median wealth of the entire population to increase while, at the same time, the wealth of some members of the population increases by a greater percentage than the median wealth overall does.

List the entire post or I won't respond.

[JohnStOnge]

I'd missed that response before. I am going to list the basic points of the post to which you responded. Which, if any, do you think are false given the current system?

1) Technology has been a factor in increasing worker productivity.
2) The total income of all Americans is not a fixed quantity.
3) The total wealth of all Americans is not a fixed quantity.
4) It is possible for the median wealth of the entire population to increase while, at the same time, the wealth of some members of the population increases by a greater percentage than the median wealth overall does.

List the entire post or I won't respond.

OK:

I'm guessing technology has been a factor in increased worker productivity. And we've been through the redistribution thing before. The existence of the personal computer alone means one person can do a lot more of certain types of work in a given time than the same person could've done 30 years ago. Also, the fact that the "top" of the wealth and/or income distribution today has a higher percentage of the total wealth and/or income than it did 30 years ago does not mean that the rest of the wealth and/or income distribution has less wealth and/or income than it did 30 years ago.

Same old same old. The total wealth and income are not fixed quantities so that one person having more than they used to means another person (or set of people) has to have less. In this instance, CEOs getting a larger percent increase than "typical" workers did does not mean "typical" workers got less of an increase than they would have if CEO incomes had increased by less, stayed the same, or declined. "Typical" workers got what people who wanted their services felt their services were worth.

Then you said that would make sense if we were in a free market economy. So I'm asking why it doesn't make sense in the current situation; whether one considers our economy "free market" or not.