So, are the asshats who wrote the story cutting 20% of their salaries as a shining example for the rest of us overpaid workers?

And will businesses cut all of their prices by 20% too?

Amen AZ Matt. I expect to see this dipshit be the first in line for a 20% cut. And I hope he’s married. Cause his wife will be thrilled that he thinks workers deserve a 20% cut.

Asshole.

If you ask me, with the stagnant wages over the last 3 decades and the rising cost of housing and health care, workers probably already have taken a 20% cut.

Fucking asshole.

I think it’s time to bring back the good old days where the top income tax bracket hit 93% for the wealthy pigs screwing the rest of us.

By the way will NYT take a 20% cut in news stand prices or is it just the peons?

masaccio,
Comments here are pretty funny

Lowering the cost of health care by killing insurance as we know it… is the answer for all american workers.

21st century version of the unfairly attributed “let them eat” cake quote: If poor people can’t pay their bills, let them liquidate a portion of their investment portfolios.

Well, that Bugatti is a cool car.
If American workers must take a haircut to afford me a live glimpse of one of those someday before I die, so be it, I guess….

American CEO’s are over paid what does the CEO of Toyota get vs what the CEO of GM gets? Never mind GM stock price has dropped for decades.

These guys sound like the old days from Reagan where Ed Meese was declared “struggling middle-class” (at over $100k per). And $100k went a tad bit further 25 years ago.

These guys are the reason you will never catch me buying a subcription to the “grey geezer!” It has always been pro-plutocrat,anti-middle class! In reality the depression won’t end until workers earn enough to buy again. I won’t miss these publications when they go bankrupt either!

Particularly #3 *g*

LOL

Fine lets treat this serious Just what happens to Goldman’s Sac if workers wages drop 20% we are a consumer economy based on loose credit and an expectation of a certain level of spending. A 20% drop in wages will increase home bankruptcies how much?
Just how much will consumer spending drop? Just how many companies that got loan’s with Goldman have business plans that assume X amount of consumer spending?

I still don’t understand why a Tobin Tax is a good idea if it’s earmarked money in a fund for bailing out financial institutions? How is that different in substance than the glaring problems created by Treasury’s request to have essentially an open-ended TARP, other than the seed money comes from transactions. It’s still an incentive to do stupid things with an implicit government guarantee.

Seconded When the rich were taxed and the money invested back into America American business was at its strongest.

How many hundreds of times more do CEOs make than the average employee?

What you have to understand about economists is that they virtually never take real bleeding and hurting human beings into their calculations. They talk about “dislocations” or “jobless recoveries” without giving a second thought to the people involved.

You have to understand too that for the last 30 years wages have been flat because wage increases were seen as inherently inflationary and to be combatted by raising interest rates. Shoveling money to the wealthy via capital gains and income tax cuts which was then used to fuel a succession of destructive bubbles, however, was never questioned.

Finally, you have to consider that workers in all other industrialized countries have access to some form of universal healthcare. I doubt that these bozos figured that into their calculations. I doubt too that they tied any of their calculations to comparable standards of living or a dozen of other pertinent variables. I see these articles almost everyday. I seldom look beyond the headline. They are just part of the noise machine. They are not supposed to be informative. Their sole purpose is to propagandize.

I used to manage a compensation department for a well known company in the 90s and early two-thousands-eeze (as Rachel says).
I vividly remember the increasing medical costs being deducted from the salary budgets of the line workers (3-7% per year), the salary budgets being held at 3% (less than inflation at the time) and the VP level and above getting 20-25% per annum increases in salary not to mention stock options, with strike prices being “manipulated” based on quarterly reporting and board meeting dates. Good times.
And here we are.

This is one of the reasons the health insurance mandate is so bad – as wages go down, insurance costs go up, consumming an ever-larger percentage of income. You can provide food, clothing, and housing to your family only AFTER you’ve paid your mordida (bite) to Blue Cross. And don’t expect any subsidies to keep up with the cost increases. How generous do you think welfare benefits would be if over 50% of the population needed them? Well, over 50% of the population will need an insurance subsidy. Good luck with that.

I’d like to see a tax on every stock, bond, and derivative transaction. The companies trading this shit are making billions in fees. There’s no reason the taxpayers shouldn’t get a bite of that action as well. If the rich pay more at point of sale, tough shit. For the present we could earmark it to pay down our war debt.

Edward Hadas, Martin Hutchinson and Antony Currie,

Who are these hacks? We need economists to share their entire record of predictions before they get into print.
Anyone remember economist Ben Stein formerly of the NY Times telling people to buy financial stocks when they had way more to drop?
Lets see their right wrong record on predictions. I’m tired of hacks getting in print because they say what Goldman wants them to say.

In addition to all the pooh bahs at NYT getting to go the GS shindigs NYT prolly owes a ton of money to GS, directly or indirectly.

American Workers AT THE NY TIMES are Overpaid Says New York Times.

There. Fixed it.

And we could call it a “value added tax”

True classic conflict of interest the Times stock price has dropped how much the last 8 years as they cheered Bush’s economic policy? The Times has how many advertisers with loans at Goldman? Not that the Times ever mentions this conflict.

Not too ironic.

It is totally cool, isn’t it? I’m sure at least one will be bought by a Goldman Sachs guy.

Very nice job on the part of the first few commenters!! Pitchforks!

Want a real economic indicator, the Xmas season is nearly upon us. All the fudged numbers in the world won’t save some.

That is cool, isn’t it?

The point of the Tobin tax is to reduce the level of trading that causes problems. It doesn’t have to be earmarked, and I wouldn’t. In fact, I’d use it to fund health care.

I worked for the HR department of a Fortune 100 company in the nineties; one of the major challenges when we re-started the payroll system every January was making sure that the CEO’s paycheck didn’t have the social security/medicare tax applied to all of it.

Yup, the first two weeks of pay for the CEO exceeded the salary cap for social security taxes.

I liked that too – you know I blog at the UnrulyMob too? Haven’t posted an article in a while, but, nonetheless… :)

Cutting war spending never entered their heads? Saving money by giving everyone healthcare less sick days as sick workers get treated rather than infect everyone at work? Less food poisoning as sick workers stay home rather than cough on the fast food burgers they make or pigs, cows, chickens etc they slaughter.
These easier solutions they never thought of? Fine how about we tell the Tea Partiers the GOP wants to cut their pay 20%.
Can we REBELLION? The cost of implementing a solution must also be considered.

Helluva car. Great review.

And, when their profits also go down 20% will they be happy when Wall St. reduces the value of their stock (presuming they are a public corp) by 20%? If it goes down enough the stockholders (greedy bastards all) might have to consider reducing executive pay by 20% (forget bonuses!).

See how it all goes around when it comes around.

They keep complaining about the lack of consumer spending and then ask why we don’t reduce worker pay by 20% without giving a thought to what that would do to consumer spending.

Why don’t they consider raising pay by 10% for a change?

Or, if every company in America would simply hire two people per existing thousand employees next week or simply choose to NOT work people over-time and instead hire someone new to do that work, then we might see a quicker bounce back.

Isn’t it odd how they complain about Washington not doing enough when they’ve complained for decades about Washington doing TOO MUCH? They say, “Keep gov’t off our backs, out of our hair and reduce regulations, so we can create jobs.” But not so much now. They love to socialize costs and privatize profits.

I bet the GOP and Tea Party jerks point to this article and then say that Liberals want to cut their pay.
The Real Left needs to get rid of Fake Liberals like the Times soon.

Oh if this gains traction, along with the Dirty Seven’s new push to cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security benefits. Piling that on top of the mandated health insurance purchase with no cap on premiums and we have the seeds of an American citizen’s revolt being sown, I do believe. The lower middle and working classes are already bending past the breaking point and it won’t take much to spring that break. I imagine a painful winter where fuel costs destroy what little hedge is left against destitution for millions. Crime is soaring everywhere as dejected and desperate people drink, drug, and fight their way out of the daily despair by killing each other. Interesting times, interesting times.

I saw a story recently about a guy driving a Ferrari to deliver pizzas. Somehow I don’t think the Rich in America will ever let that happen. But, we’ve also got to beware that we don’t all end up driving trash heaps.

Funny not one word about a very predictable increase in crime rates and the cost to society? Just where did these hacks get their diplomas?

Indeed. “Here we are”. Those who thought all profits due to increases in productivity should accrue to the executives have lost a lot in the last few years and Alan Greenspan said “I was wrong”, so here we are.

I like Pres. Obama’s idea of building a ‘new foundation’ from which we can go forward with some confidence. It isn’t flashy and the public will probably never fully recognize it’s importance, but it is the medicine we need. We might see enough economic achievement to claim some victory, but there’s no guarantee.

Let’s hope Dems have sufficient other achievements to crow about in order to stay in office.

I’m paid twice as much, in face-value, as my father was when he retired 30 years ago, and I can’t afford a house or a family. That’s one answer: we’re making a lot less in real dollars than we were then, but the guys at the top are making at least as much in real dollars.

50% of the world exists on less than $5.00 per day, 30% on less than $2.00 per day. Yes, we do have to bring Americans’ salaries into line with the rest of the world. Keep those illegals flowing, bonuses as usual, and Geithner, Summers and Emanuel running the financial end of things.

Very cool, Kelly!

These are the obviously redundant reporters:

EDWARD HADAS, MARTIN HUTCHINSON and ANTONY CURRIE

What a piece of shit article, massacio. A total piece of crap. If I were their editor, I’d have kicked it back as such.

RE: Their perspective of unemployment is ridiculously flawed.

…Some of that huge increase reflects the sharp decline in gross domestic product, but there could be another factor: the recession shows that many workers are paid more than they’re worth.

There’s a sharp decline in gross domestic product because workers have stopped consuming goods. They stopped consuming in early/mid 2008 when fuel prices rose to $4/gallon, and other commodities which rely on fuel for production became inflated in price. Workers had to choose between buying fuel and food or buying other non-essentials; when they stopped their non-essential consumption, falling demand caused steep increases in unemployment.

Don’t even get me started on the automobile industry and the related steep loss in jobs. As if the steep escalation in fuel costs last year had nothing to do with that…

RE: Their SWAG about productivity:

Another possible sign is the huge surge in reported productivity, which has begun while output is declining. That suggests that some production is being outsourced, often to lower-paid foreign workers.

No, morons, no…productivity increases at the bottom of a recession, as one of the moron authors has written in another paper but conveniently forgotten. That’s because business owners may increase worker hours instead of increasing hiring more new workers when the bottom of the recession is long and forecasts don’t predict a solid, sharp upturn. Business owners may also be resisting the urge to buy more capital goods, and instead ask workers to produce more with older, amortized equipment.

RE: their speculation about American workers costing more than others in general –

Well, yeah, the stupid dorks haven’t taken into consideration that there are costs associated with having a workforce which expects to live a middle class American lifestyle, and not work like these guys or this guy without safety gear and for mere pennies an hour.

I mean, seriously, are we supposed to expect to race everybody else in the world to the bottom? Or are we suppose be setting an example in terms of a safe but comfortable lifestyle? I don’t personally want to give up either a living wage or safety.

Rayne, here is the paper they based this article on:

Why are We in a Recession? The Financial Crisis is the Symptom Not the Disease!

Ravi Jagannathan
Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management

Mudit Kapoor
Indian School of Business

Ernst Schaumburg
Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management

October 2009

NBER Working Paper No. w15404

Abstract:
Globalization has brought a sharp increase in the developed world’s labor supply. Labor in developing countries – countries with vast pools of underemployed people – can now more easily augment labor in the developed world, without having to relocate, in ways not thought possible only a few decades ago. We argue that the large increase in the developed world’s labor supply, triggered by geo-political events and technological innovations, is the major underlying cause of the global macro economic imbalances that led to the great recession. The inability of existing institutions in the US and the rest of the world to cope with this shock set the stage for the great recession: The inability of emerging economies to absorb savings through domestic investment and consumption due to inadequate national financial markets and difficulties in enforcing financial contracts; the currency controls motivated by immediate national objectives; and the inability of the US economy to adjust to the perverse incentives caused by huge money inflows leading to a breakdown of checks and balances at various financial institutions. The financial crisis in the US was but the first acute symptom that had to be treated. A sustainable recovery will only occur when the natural flow of capital from developed to developing nations is restored.

I think the paper may have the same problems the description does. H/T Seeking Alpha.

ok. Here’s a rhetorical question for the NY Times: for how many of the last, say, 20 years has labor productivity growth in the US outstripped real wage growth?

oops.

I work for the NY Times. I’m dumb.

You’re absolutely right. seriously, the science in this article is so flawed that it isn’t even worth debating from a partisan progressive perspective. It’s just wrong. The authors don’t seem to understand productivity and it’s relationship to real wages. They don’t seem to understand labor supply and demand. And they don’t seem to understand production productivity curves.

sorry .. I meant to type production possibility curves… iPhone autocorrect problems again ;-P

More of the same economic bullshit from the libertarians and conservatives that feel America workers need to be competitive with third world workers. It’s time to either “eat their rich” or tax them into the middle class.

Or, you know, we could make *other* countries pay their workers what they’re worth… instead of turning our workers into indentured services or child sweat-shop workers…

Maybe we should twitter the Tri-Lateral Twins on the Morning Joe Show, and find out what they think.

This is the first time I am hearing that so many employees are getting over paid despite of the global economic slow down. Strange to have known this.

Annuities

From the blog Naked Capitalism

“Yves here. Krugman does Germany an injustice by failing to contest US prejudices about European (particularly German) labor practices. If German labor practices are so terrible, then how was Germany an export powerhouse, able to punch above its weight versus Japan and China, while the US, with our supposedly great advantage of more flexible (and therefore cheaper) labor, has run chronic and large current account deficits? And why is Germany a hotbed of successful entrepreneurial companies, its famed Mittelstand? If Germany was such a terrible place to do business, wouldn’t they have hollowed out manufacturing just as the US has done? Might it be that there are unrecognized pluses of not being able to fire workers at will, that the company and the employees recognize that they are in the same boat, and the company has more reason to invest in its employees (ignore the US nonsense “employees are our asset,” another line from the corporate Ministry of Truth).

A different example. A US colleague was sent to Paris to turn around a medical database business (spanning 11 timezones). She succeeded. Now American managers don’t know how to turn around businesses without firing people, which was not an option for her. I submit that no one is willing to consider that the vaunted US labor market flexibility has produced lower skilled managers, one who resort to the simple expedient of expanding or contracting the workforce (which is actually pretty disruptive and results in the loss of skills and know-how) rather than learning how to manage a business with more foresight and in a more organic fashion because the business is defined to a large degree around its employees.”

Note to EDWARD HADAS, MARTIN HUTCHINSON and ANTONY CURRIE; the biggest whores do not stand on street corners.

Stewed on this overnight. Dawned on me this morning that I should have recognized this for what it is.

SHOCK DOCTRINE.

These assholes are pushing us to accept the shock doctrine in the wake of a financial crisis. It’s the same thing the shock doctrinaires have done elsewhere in the world, propelling the questionable concept of “creative destruction” before them. And now they are doing to us what we’ve done to other countries.

We have a financial crisis, they say, because our system is too generous to workers; that generosity is the problem, not the financial crisis itself.

And we’re supposed to be as uninformed and uneducated as third world workers and accept this blindly?

Jeebus. We have a financial crisis because the real problem is unfettered, unregulated greed which has the balls to call itself a “free market.” When combined with a lack of transparency and corruption within government, you get a financial crisis.

Oh, and when the rest of the world literally buys into this same system, assumes that the financial industry is safe and well-regulated, it’s called globalization.

When the house of cards collapses, the crisis does, too, because of globalization. It had nothing, NOTHING to do with workers’ wages except that recovery will be slow because workers’ wages have collapsed along with their jobs as a result of the financial crisis.

Gawddamnitall but this article really chaps my chops. Freaking stupid piece of crap.

Bravo to you.

Did you see the articles this morning which said the EuroZone is out of recession?

Yeah, Germany and France leading the way. Damned union workers again, eh?

I won’t be shedding any tears when these authors are in bread lines.

Thom Hartmann was all over this topic yesterday. He said something like 95% of the world is paid $5 a day or less. That’s what it would take to get us “in line” with the rest of the world.

Now how exactly do they expect me to buy house, car and life insurance for with $5 a day?

What would I put in my 401K or regular investment accounts?

Really, these guys are total fucking morons. Thanks for the number, it’s probably more than those guys I linked to in (46) above made per day.