The Continuing Failure Of Conservative Economic Policies

Truly appalling ignorance.

1st your knowledge of how business gets done on capitol hill is at best fragmentary. No president even when the party holding congress is his own ever gets his budget through congress unscathed When it's the opposite party his budget requests are basically a dead letter and always have been. 2nd prior to Gerald Ford's veto of a massive, pork laden water works bill for the department of the interior budgets were done piece meal one department at a time. In order to avoid such vetoes in the future congress began to send through the whole budget all at once giving presidents the unenviable choice of vetoing the whole damn thing and shutting down the government temporarily or holding his nose and signing off on whatever crap congress chose to pass though it's alimentary canal. 3rd Gingrich lost his job not because of the impeachment but because of a phony trumped up scandal over a book he co-wrote which was actually published and sold in significant quantities. As compared to the usual congressional offerings prior to which got huge up front payments but almost never sold anything and really weren't intended to do much more than augment the congressman's salary via a closet bribe.

 

Welcome To The Oligarchy – US Leads The Developed World In Low Wage Jobs

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

In an apparent attempt to advise investors on how they can take advantage of America’s transformation into a neo-feudal oligarchy in a 50-page research report, Morgan Stanley has put together some very interesting charts.. We will be sharing many of them in the next few days but none is more telling and depressing than the one that shows how the U.S. leads the developed world in the share of low wage jobs...







Of course, this shouldn’t come as any surprise to readers. I have covered the death of America’s middle-class for many years now, most notably in the post from last summer: How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally? #27.

As the middle-class has been destroyed, and the poor placated temporarily by various government benefits, the oligarchy has had free reign to thieve and expand its wealth at a dizzying pace. The Federal Reserve fueled stock market has been a key tool in the process of keeping the 1% silent, as the chart below demonstrates:





While I can’t say the above is surprising, it certainly seems to confirm my prior contention that the stock market is merely: Food Stamps for the 1%.

U.S. policy is all about keeping the 99.9% quiet and distracted, while the oligarchs strip-mine the nation. Unfortunately, that strategy is working... for now!
Charts here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-23/welcome-oligarchy-–-us-leads-developed-world-low-wage-jobs

 

You don't have to cut the budget you just have to hold the growth in spending to less than the growth in GDP. In fact increasing GDP had more to do with increasing revenue than the miniscule and easily avoidable Clinton tax hike.

 

I don't need talking points, the facts support me. The top 10% didn't just reap the most financial benefits. They reaped all of the financial benefits. Your desperate attempt to defend trickle down economics is sad. There's no need to discuss "the point" of trickle down when we can see the real world results.

 

I have never once evaluated my "worth" to a company based on the companies performance. Never. I do however remember employers of mine not paying themselves, in order to make payroll, so I could eat.

At that point, I realized that employers and employees are not playing by the same set of standards.

If you are comparing the salary of the CEO of a world wide company, like Walmart, to that of the door greeter. Then I don't see any problem with the CEO earning 300 times more than the door greeter. He has 300 times more opportunity to run the company into the ground, probably more, than that employee. He or she is also worth more than three hundred times that employees worth. Thats just the way it is. The door greeter can be angry all they want, but the labor market says that they aren't very valuable while the executives are.

 

Had absolutely nothing to do with trickle down economics and everything to do with the fact that government spending continues to grow to the point where fifty percent of gdp is spent on governance at one level or the other. Combine this with increasing automation and a commiserate shrinkage in the number of skilled jobs available plus the government mandated growth of benefits as a percentage of the over all compensation package of course Joe Sixpack's take home pay is at best stagnant. It's also about to get worse as our ever more rapacious government begins to think about taxing his benefits with those taxes of course serving to further reduce Joe's take home pay.

 

Are you claiming that trickle down has been a success? None of the things you mention explains why the top has made out like bandits with little of value "trickling down" to anyone else.

 

No I'm claiming that trickle down is a non factor in blue collar wage stagnation. I'm also telling you why this is vastly more the fault of government than it is of Mr. Businessman. Mr. Businessman has made out like a bandit because it now takes a much smaller workforce to produce far more product. Further it takes a far less skilled work force. Meanwhile Mr. businessman is spending a far higher percentage of his money on compliance with the rules and regulations issued each day by forty odd federal agencies and God alone knows how many different state, county and local agencies.

 

I didn't say anything was the fault of "Mr. Businessman". We're talking about the failure of trickle down economics. Who said trickle down wasn't the fault of government? I didn't say trickle down caused wage stagnation, I 'm saying that the idea that largesse at the top will flow down and improve all levels of the economy (ie trickle down) is demonstrably false. Do you disagree with that? And, if so, on what basis? Tax breaks for the wealthy isn' the going to stop automation. If you can produce more with a smaller work force, why would you expect anything to "trickle down"?

 

If company performance has never entered your thoughts when considering your pay package then you are just exactly the kind of compliant, complacent wage slave companies like walmart are looking for.

Door greeters don't make $35000 a year. They make minimum wage about $15,000 a year if they actually get full time hours, so the CEO (the average CEO, not walmarts own) makes more like 775 times their salary. In point of fact I believe I saw somewhere that walmarts CEO makes $35 million a year in salary (not counting other compensation) which is over $15,000 an HOUR.

The CEO makes more in a hour than some employees make in a year, but that moneys "trickling" right on down, improving every-ones lives.
And you guys have the gall to call liberals "sheep".

 

There is no other way.............the wealthy will always end up with the lions share....................no matter how you much you don't want it to be so.......

Trickle down has worked just fine....................its the fact that most people think trickle down should mean pour down that's the problem.

 

Trickle Down does not exist as an economic theory. No politician or economist has ever advocated for its implementation.

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CEO compensation is extremely volatile, while employee compensation is not. The two cannot be compared. It's not smart to do so.

 

Wal-mart CEO's base pay is 1.2 million a year. STOCK is where CEOs get paid.............and its performance based.......

What you saw was him getting 23 million in STOCK options.

 

Only Clinton with a GOP legislature. Funny thing, Clinton knew how to work with the opposing party to reach mutual goals and make compromises.

 

Reagan's budget director admitted supply side is trickle down and there's a poster in this thread advocating trickle down.

 

You might want to explain that to your conservative buddies. Including Ronald Regan and his cabinet.

Of course you would say that, with a name like WallStreetVixen. When was the last time you heard of a CEO coming up short when the employees didn't? Seriously, name ONE TIME. You can't because it NEVER HAPPENS!

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Who claims to be well versed in economics IIRC.

 

That's false. There is very little evidence that, other than hearsay, and the poster is not a politician nor an economist.

Basic understanding of economic theory should be able to teach anyone how the supply-side theory is not the trickle down theory. Trickle-Down theory utilises the effect of marginal tax cuts in capital gains and income taxes to stimulate the economy, while the supply-side theory is much more than that. It's an macroeconomic phenomenon that uses tax cuts, along with monetary policy and regulation.

 

So to begin with

1) greeters make more than 15k/yr if working full time. That's just simple number crunching.
2) CEOs don't get 15k/hr. It sounds like you've made the mistake of assuming CEOs work 40 hrs. second, their salary is what, 1.2m? So the salary of the CEO is not even 100x that of a door greeter.

Let's be honest here: a good CEO on that level is worth more than 100x door greeters.

 

Not sure how your semantics game changes the fact that the policies are a failure no matter what you call them.

 

It actually happens all the time. One particular year, a CEO can receive a 25% increase in compensation, and the following year can receive a 30% drop in compensation. Because CEO compensation is heavily reliant on rewards (as 20% of CEO compensation is just base salary), CEO compensation is extremely volatile. Anyone with any decent researching skills can look up Proxy Statements in the SEC EGAR database, and look up CEO compensation of the current and previously reigning CEOs of any company, and see just how exactly they are making their money.

How exactly would you feel if you received a 30% drop in pay? It would probably be safe to say that it wouldn't be to good of a feeling, but you would never experienced that pay cut, because your responsibilities pales in comparisons to corporate executives. Only from the outside looking in does it look easy.

 

It's not semantics because they are not the same, as I just explained to you. And I don't understand what failure you are referring to. Supply-Side was never implemented fully throughout history, ever... Reagan never managed to control the rate of Government spending, nor was he able to reduce the amount of regulation.

If you are referring to Trickle-Down, as I have explained, it doesn't exist as an economic theory. It has often been used as a critique of an economic policy regarding tax cuts. If you're going to chalk up Trickle-Down as simply tax cuts, by that logic, anyone is a trickle-downer. JFK, Bush, Obama, Etc, etc...

 

There is no evidence David Stockman personally advocated Trickle Down. There is only evidence that he claims to have advocated for it.

That's hearsay, and I don't play that game.

 

Because Bill Clinton entered into over 300 trade deals that gave foreign businesses with cheaper labor supplies the same tax deals that domestic businesses were getting.

US Trade Policy in the last 40 years:

1) Reagan--We beat them dirty japs in the war and now they are selling more cars here---we must export more American cars to show them America is the greatest place on earth!!!!
2) Bush I--The economy is fine, just relax....hey stop running at me with those pitchforks, you slimy bastards!!!
3) Clinton--Any business that doesn't support the DNC will be exported, and we will double down on cars and technology because those folks vote for us. Need to sell more cars!!!
4) Bush II--Look at me drive around my ranch in my old American made truck while the boys ride around the sand in their American made armor.
5)Obama--We must save GM--their workers vote democrat. In the meantime, let's look at this deal I have to send even more jobs overseas and give even more foreign companies sweetheart tax deals to prove that "Screw the Japs!!!" guy was wrong.

 

No comments on company performance vs. worker compensation?

I'm guessing that's because all executive pay is based on company performance and admitting that would kinda undermine your whole argument.

Number crunching: $7.25 hr X 40 hr week = $290
$290 wk X 52 wks = $15080.
That's number crunching. Don't know what you're doing.

First, I know CEOs work more than 40 hrs a week, but that's the base unit for figuring hourly wages so that's what I went with. Heck even if he worked 80 hrs a week (not likely) it's still $7500.00 an hour so pretty much a moot point.
Second, My bad here, that $35 million did include other compensations like stock options. Sorry.
Third, I made a math error as well. $15,000 goes into $35,000,000 2,333.34 times.

2,333.34 times more than a full time minimum wage employee.

 

Is it a "living wage" I bet not, and I bet they still have to get government assistance. Hypocrisy is noted.