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If only the median and weighted wages (not including return on capital) were published and followed as a guage of economy whose growth was the goal, we would all be in a better shape. Not going to happen in this paradoxical capitalistic system. Return on capital requires wages to be lower and lower while the consumption based economics to justify that return requires higher and higher wages.
And if we really wanted to have corporations not trying to manipulate markets but growing their companies that requires investments in skilled workforce that wouldl help the economy, we would have the executive salaries tied not to stock prices but to increases in shareholder equity in the balance sheets. Most CEOs would be out of a job.
For that to happen ideological blindfolds have to come off and the economists have to grow some %^$&s and brains.
"Return on capital requires wages to be lower and lower while the consumption based economics to justify that return requires higher and higher wages."
I was thinking that very thing as I read the papers this morning, although certainly not in your highfalutin prose. It was more like "how can these bastards complain about lousy consumer consumption when they are doing everything possible to eliminate jobs and hold down pay?"
You are absolutely right about the paradox. If dummies like me can see this how come our vaunted high-level economics wizards apparently can't? (You don't suppose that they've been bought off, by any chance?)
I witnessed and began to understand this transformation (management in particular) as I watched the "old management", most of whom were educated properly for their positions; but who had also moved "up" through the company and actually knew what the company was all about. In 1990, a group I had worked with for a number of years was always in the top 5% of monetary performers nationwide. The company president invited several of us for lunch and a meeting to "discover" our secret of high standards and performance. He listened very closely and began some changes within the company. Within 2 years he and numerous others in upper management were replaced with outsiders who had no knowledge of the particular business. I watched as the company took too many wrong paths to make things "better". The majority of the new leaders were MBA folks who had graduated in the early 1990's. They tried all kinds of fancy stuff to enlighten the workers. But, never again did anyone from upper management ever ask "us" what could be done to improve the performance of the company. I suspect their ego(s) caused them to know they had already learned from the MBA program books what needed to be done. Sadly, they didn't know, that they didn't know. This technical company still exists, but has had a few CEO's removed under shady circumstances and more than one class action lawsuit filed by employees and customers. Just one of what I suspect are numerous similar conditions of American companies.
Comments
And if we really wanted to have corporations not trying to manipulate markets but growing their companies that requires investments in skilled workforce that wouldl help the economy, we would have the executive salaries tied not to stock prices but to increases in shareholder equity in the balance sheets. Most CEOs would be out of a job.
For that to happen ideological blindfolds have to come off and the economists have to grow some %^$&s and brains.
I was thinking that very thing as I read the papers this morning, although certainly not in your highfalutin prose.
You are absolutely right about the paradox. If dummies like me can see this how come our vaunted high-level economics wizards apparently can't? (You don't suppose that they've been bought off, by any chance?)
I witnessed and began to understand this transformation (management in particular) as I watched the "old management", most of whom were educated properly for their positions; but who had also moved "up" through the company and actually knew what the company was all about. In 1990, a group I had worked with for a number of years was always in the top 5% of monetary performers nationwide. The company president invited several of us for lunch and a meeting to "discover" our secret of high standards and performance. He listened very closely and began some changes within the company. Within 2 years he and numerous others in upper management were replaced with outsiders who had no knowledge of the particular business. I watched as the company took too many wrong paths to make things "better". The majority of the new leaders were MBA folks who had graduated in the early 1990's. They tried all kinds of fancy stuff to enlighten the workers. But, never again did anyone from upper management ever ask "us" what could be done to improve the performance of the company. I suspect their ego(s) caused them to know they had already learned from the MBA program books what needed to be done. Sadly, they didn't know, that they didn't know.
This technical company still exists, but has had a few CEO's removed under shady circumstances and more than one class action lawsuit filed by employees and customers.
Just one of what I suspect are numerous similar conditions of American companies.
Regards,
Catch