The Goat Pen

bluetick wrote:Ten times the lowest paid employee probably harkens back to pre-Industrialized America. But God bless ol' Ben and Jerrys anyway.

And this time it's not just another annual rant about CEOs making umpteen times more than their workers - it's the fact that they made out like bandits during a killer recession, while putting a ton of people out of work, and making those left behind pick up the slack. The game is rigged. They win when they win, and they win when they lose.

Hell, their Japanese counterparts would go in a back room and carve out their own guts for crissakes.

Did they actually get paid that amount?...Not unless they sold all thier options which probably weren't even allowed to do.

Besides you all should be happy. If they got paid that much they just paid millions in taxes as well.

When a company does well the CEO should do well as should all the employees who weren't jagoffs. CEOs should be incentivized for long term. There should be no: you sit on my board and vote me a ton of shares and I'll do the same for you.

But the govt doesn't need to get involved with ratios either.

Dr. Strangelove wrote:

innocentbystander wrote:

bluetick wrote:Ten times the lowest paid employee probably harkens back to pre-Industrialized America. But God bless ol' Ben and Jerrys anyway.

And this time it's not just another annual rant about CEOs making umpteen times more than their workers - it's the fact that they made out like bandits during a killer recession while putting a ton of people out of work.

Unfortunately, the CEO's job is to make as much money for the company as he or she can. Part of doing that sometimes means firing employees (to make the company more profitable.) As technology advances with capital investment, labor loses ground/power.

This is the difference between the modern-day CEO and the Founder of a corporation. Guys like Henry Ford, and Bill Gates, and J Paul Getty actually cared about the long-term health of the companies they created. 90% of all CEO's don't give a shit about long-term health.

That is because companies don't really grow in "size" anymore. The growth is measured in the growth of the profit.

The entire concept of getting one job at age 21 or 22 (or whatever) and working for that company for the next 35 years (knowing that all you have to do is show up each morning, straight and sober, you keep your job), harkens back to Industrialized America. That is not the world in which we all now live.

innocentbystander wrote:

bluetick wrote:Ten times the lowest paid employee probably harkens back to pre-Industrialized America. But God bless ol' Ben and Jerrys anyway.

And this time it's not just another annual rant about CEOs making umpteen times more than their workers - it's the fact that they made out like bandits during a killer recession while putting a ton of people out of work.

Unfortunately, the CEO's job is to make as much money for the company as he or she can. Part of doing that sometimes means firing employees (to make the company more profitable.) As technology advances with capital investment, labor loses ground/power.

A CEO has a responsibility to run as lean as if good for the biz. If there really is fat in a company, he has no reason to keep it around unless a union contract makes him do.

This is the difference between the modern-day CEO and the Founder of a corporation. Guys like Henry Ford, and Bill Gates, and J Paul Getty actually cared about the long-term health of the companies they created. 90% of all CEO's don't give a shit about long-term health. They are there for 5-7 years tops, want to make the stock increase as much as possible, and quickly get out before any problems caused by their get-rich-quick reforms bubble to the surface.

Definitely truth to that.

I've been through two Public offerings and seen the mercenaries come in for a few years and the decisions that good made to make the books look better.

Especially when both were eventually bought out after going public. And no I missed out on all the stock options at both places due to bad timing.

There are technicians who are extremely well off with no bills other than what they spend. So it does happen.

BTW I wanted to respond to the article about this graph:

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The graph isn't misleading nor is the one where they tried to make some kind of point about percentile.

Both graphs were accurate and make perfect sense.

Top 5 percent of income earners who pay 58% of all taxes. Top 10% pay almost 70%

But to be top 10 you only need to have an AGI of $113,799 and top 5 is $159,619 that isn't even in Oprama's realm of millionaires and billionaires (200k and 250k) yet its top 10% and top 5%

I'm sure tick will find some reason to ignore...

Funny how this is touted as a good thing:

The DH said: "Waiting times go up and they go down, but this data shows that waiting times remain broadly stable. On average, admitted patients waited 7.9 weeks for treatment in March 2011, compared to eight weeks in March 2010. For outpatients it is just 3.7 weeks, compared to 3.8 weeks in 2010."

That would be AWFUL here. Hell Mother in law tore her meniscus and ACL about a week ago and had MRI within 2 days, blood removed from joint, and is having surgery TODAY.

Dad has friggin kidney stones and he is able to get it pretty much immediately to see doc and they decided on surgery three days ago and he is out of it TODAY. A month? Two months? Insane.

NHS budget squeeze to blame for longer waiting times, say doctors

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Latest performance data reveal number of English patients waiting more than 18 weeks has risen by 26% in last year

.http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... mes-longer

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New NHS performance data reveal that the number of people in England who are being forced to wait more than 18 weeks has risen by 26% in the last year, while the number who had to wait longer than six months has shot up by 43%.

In March this year, 34,639 people, or 11% of the total, waited more than that time to receive inpatient treatment, compared with 27,534, or 8.3%, in March 2010 – an increase of 26% – Department of Health statistics show.

Similarly, in March this year some 11,243 patients who underwent treatment had waited for more than six months, compared with 7,841 in the same month in 2010 – a 43% rise.

Despite rising demand for healthcare caused by the increasingly elderly population and growing numbers of people with long-term conditions, the NHS treated 16,201 fewer people as inpatients in March 2011 compared to March 2010, the latest Referral To Treatment data disclose.

The British Medical Association said the longer waits and fewer treatments were inevitable: "Given the massive financial pressures on the NHS, it was always likely that hospital activity would decrease and waiting times would increase," said a spokesperson.

Heh...

I ME MINE: Obama praises CIA for bin Laden raid, while saying 'I' 37 times...

'Not worried about who's getting the credit'...

No wonder Talent doesn't post here anymore.

Jungle Rat wrote:No wonder Talent doesn't post here anymore.

Where is that patent attorney from Ohio, anyway?

puterbac wrote:If the feds would like to set a national speed limit, it can as it is within one of it's powers and the state would have to follow it. (Remember, Carter did this). Just because the feds haven't done something doesn't mean that they can't do something.

Didn't states have the ability to have higher limits but lose highway funding if they did?

Or am I confusing that with drinking age laws?[/quote]


The drinking age was definitely done under the feds spending power. Don't know about the national speed limit. I suspect they did it under their spending clause power through highway funds, but they could have done it through their commerce power as well.

Highway funds

bluetick wrote:Ten times the lowest paid employee probably harkens back to pre-Industrialized America. But God bless ol' Ben and Jerrys anyway.

And this time it's not just another annual rant about CEOs making umpteen times more than their workers - it's the fact that they made out like bandits during a killer recession, while putting a ton of people out of work, and making those left behind pick up the slack. The game is rigged. They win when they win, and they win when they lose.

Hell, their Japanese counterparts would go in a back room and carve out their own guts for crissakes.

Japanese CEOs? Nope, sorry. The rank and file? Yes.

OSHA=EPA+NLRB+ETC

Keep up the good work EPA. You aren't perfect, but we are a better country with you than without you

Somewhere lrd is celebrating this...

Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times

.http://abcnews.go.com/US/tucson-swat-te ... d=13640112

A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.

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"They found nothing in the house that was illegal," he said. Framing the delay in providing medical attention as a tactical decision is "nonsense," Scileppi said. "There was an ambulance there in two minutes and they were never allowed in."

The Latest Social Security Ploy

By Neal Boortz

There is a talking point floating around the Lib/Prog community right now about Social Security. After Friday’s report that Social Security will take in less than it is paying out in 2011 … liberals immediately moved to justify their Ponzi scheme, and this is what they’ve come up with: "Those who say that Social Security is in deficit this year are flat wrong," said Nancy Altman, co-chair of Strengthen Social Security, in a Friday statement. "By law, Social Security cannot deficit-spend and cannot borrow, so it is obvious that Social Security cannot add a penny to the federal deficit."
OK … let’s see if we can adequately explain why this is purified moose squeeze.
First of all … while there is a Social Security Trust Fund, that fund is not anything like you would imagine it to be. Most Americans think that the taxes they have been paying all these years have actually been set aside or invested somehow to be used later for the payment of Social Security benefits. For many years this is exactly what was happening; there was actual money in the SS trust fund. But as government grew and the political appetite for more money started to grow, the politicians started eyeing this money. They knew that a big hunk of the Social Security taxes that were being collected would have to be spent on actual Social Security benefits. But what about the rest of the cash? Let’s take that cash and spend it on our various vote-buying programs! Why let it sit there, or why let the Social Security Administration invest it? That money can equal votes --- so let’s go get it! And get it they did. For decades now Republicans and Democrats have been taking this money to be used on their spending programs and leaving IOUs behind for the Social Security Administration. Essentially, the politicians were telling the Social Security administrators that when they actually needed that money back to pay benefits all they had to do is present their IOUs (Treasury bonds) to us and we’ll give you the money you need to pay benefits.
Well here we are. The Social Security folks will owe more in benefits this year than Social Security will be receiving in Social Security taxes. This does not technically mean that Social Security is broke or that it has to borrow money. It is not and it does not. What Social Security DOES have to do is present IOUs to the federal government for payment; and as we know the federal government simply does not have the money to honor those IOUs. So what’s next? It’s the federal government, not Social Security, that has to borrow the money to honor the IOUs it has been giving to Social Security over the years. So this gives the Democrats, the progs, the libs and the various defenders of the Social Security Ponzi scheme the ability totally cloud the issue by saying that Social Security isn’t adding to the deficit. They’re right. It’s the federal government that has to borrow money, and therefore add to the deficit, in order to pay off the IOUs it has been giving to Social Security all those years.
Do you remember that excerpt from an article I mentioned to you earlier this week? It was something about people not being able to see through the fog of political rhetoric because of the abysmal failures of our government education system. Well, here is your case in point.
OK … did I do a good job of explaining this charade to you?

Mark Steyn: The unzippered princeling and the serving wench

By MARK STEYN

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/-301346--.html

OPINIONMAY 20, 2011

The Medicare Test for President

A candidate who is timid on entitlement reform is not qualified to lead the country

.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop

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Whoa, that does sound like a pretty "radical" plan. But which part is the radical one? Is it the provision that guarantees that today's Medicare benefits and eligibility remain exactly as they are for seniors born before 1956, and for everyone else for the remainder of this decade? Or is it the part that gradually raises the retirement age to 67 from 65 over a period of 12 years starting in 2022? Or is it the section that gives all beneficiaries a lot more coverage options, similar to the array of health-plan choices currently enjoyed by members of Congress?

The answer, we suspect, is none of the above. For the Democrats, the real concern is that requiring health-insurance plans to compete for seniors' business would actually work to hold down costs, proving once again that markets are more efficient than government. In other words, for the party of government, it's about maintaining the government's monopoly.

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Under today's Medicare, seniors are subject to an individual mandate more subtle but just as coercive as ObamaCare's. By regulation, seniors must enroll in Medicare or forgo their Social Security checks. By law, they are denied the right to go outside of Medicare and buy the kind of private insurance they prefer. They are thus trapped within a single-payer government monopoly. Add budget pressures to the mix, and you have the perfect conditions for rationing.

IBD

Economic Destiny Comes Down To Obama Vs. Ryan

By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON

Posted 05/19/2011 06:17 PM ET

President Obama talks a lot about "winning the future." But to a large degree, America's future will be determined by the ongoing budget debate between him and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, with the American people deciding the outcome.

The budget debate can sometimes seem a bit complex, but there are really two key numbers to remember: 18 and 24. No matter when you start the clock — at the end of World War II, in 1970, or in 1990 — the average percentage of the gross domestic product that Americans have paid in taxes is 18%. And whether you look at the first or the last year of President Obama's 10-year budget, the percentage of GDP that he wants the government to spend is 24%.

If this model of $3 in and $4 out doesn't seem sustainable, it's not. And if you can't believe that our elected leaders in Washington would really let things get so out of control, consider this:

According to President Obama's own budgetary estimates, for every $4 that comes in this year, $7 will go out, and mandatory spending alone will surpass all federal revenues. In other words, if we didn't spend a dime this year on national parks, interstate highways or even national defense, we would still have a deficit.

Moreover, we face a colossal $14 trillion in national debt that we have already accrued.

So, facing such daunting fiscal challenges, what should we do? The Congressional Budget Office has provided scoring for three possible paths forward from here.

Simpler Tax Code

The first of these paths is the CBO's "extended-baseline scenario," the scenario under current law. In this scenario, the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 would be allowed to expire, and spending would continue on schedule.

The second path is the CBO's "alternative fiscal scenario." This scenario incorporates changes to current law that are "widely expected to occur." In this scenario, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts would be extended, politically infeasible efforts to limit health care spending would be reversed, and so on.

The third path is laid out in the Paul Ryan-authored House Republican budget. The Ryan budget would repeal ObamaCare, reduce non-security discretionary spending to pre-2008 levels and block-grant Medicaid payments to the states. It would simplify the tax code. It would seek to end corporate welfare and financial bailouts.

Contrary to some assertions, it would not cut taxes — except for the corporate tax rate, which it would reduce to the more internationally competitive rate of 25% (from 35% today).

Perhaps most significantly, it would reform Medicare from a program in which the government pays doctors and hospitals directly, to one in which the government provides premium support to seniors to help them purchase private health insurance of their choice.

Seniors' level of premium support would vary based on their income and health status, and would rise with inflation. Lower-income seniors would also have thousands of dollars deposited annually into medical savings accounts on their behalf, to cover additional expenses. And health plans that choose to compete for seniors' business would be required to insure any and all beneficiaries, regardless of health status.

Never Before

Those who are currently at least 55 years old would not be affected by these reforms, unless they freely choose to switch into the newly reformed Medicare program, once it's up and running in 2022.

Here's what the CBO says the future would look like, as of 2050, under each of these three scenarios:

Under the extended-baseline scenario, taxes would rise to the levels of a European social democratic state, reaching 26% of GDP. Across the past six decades, the highest level of taxation Americans have ever faced was just under 21% of GDP, at the height of World War II. But even with such massive tax increases, the national debt held by the public, currently about 70% of GDP, would rise to 90% of GDP, as spending would proceed unchecked.

Under the alternative fiscal scenario, taxes would rise only moderately from their historical norms, reaching 19.25% of GDP. But with Medicare, Medicaid and ObamaCare costs exploding, spending would eclipse 45% of GDP. Federal health programs alone would eat up more than three-quarters of our historic levels of taxation.

As a result, the amount of national debt held by the public "would skyrocket to levels unprecedented in the United States," hitting 344% of GDP — the equivalent of more than three years of the nation's entire economic output.

President Obama's approach, both in his budget and in his recent deficit-reduction speech, is a blend of these first two scenarios.

No Debt

Last, under the scenario proposed by Ryan, the CBO says that taxes would rise a bit but would stay within range of their historical norms, reaching 19% of GDP. Spending would be held in check, gradually falling from 24% to 15% of GDP. In the process, the amount of national debt held by the public would fall to just 10% of GDP. Less than a decade later, we would be debt-free.

So, that's the choice facing all Americans: unprecedented levels of taxation, unprecedented levels of debt or getting our spending under control. On Nov. 6, 2012, Americans will have the chance to choose their course.

• Anderson was the senior speechwriter for Secretary Mike Leavitt at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For the Democrats, the real concern is that requiring health-insurance plans to compete for seniors' business would actually work to hold down costs,

Interesting. This market based approach hasn't worked for people younger and working and they are basically healthy. Yet he thinks it will work for the most vulnerable, the elderly at the time when their health care costs are the greatest? This is a general opinion from someone that either doesn't understand the health care market or worse, is intentionally misleading just to give an ideological argument. This would means he's lying to the American public in this article or he's stupid.

Ryan's plan does nothing to keep down costs. What it really does is shift the costs to the states. Independent studies have said that it could cost the elderly an increase of 6000 dollars per year each.