American Workers are Overpaid Says New York Times

[babylonsister]

http://firedoglake.com/2009/11/12/american-workers-are-overpaid-says-new-york-times/

American Workers are Overpaid Says New York Times
By: masaccio Thursday November 12, 2009 4:50 pm


Breakingviews in the New York Times explains that factory workers in the US are wildly overpaid.

It’s possible to run the numbers to show that American manufacturing workers should take average real wage cuts of as much as 20 percent to get into global balance.

The authors, Edward Hadas, Martin Hutchinson and Antony Currie, seem to have a vague idea that fixing this might be hard on workers. They allow for the possibility that US workers might be worth a bit more than Indonesians or Taiwanese, which is why it only takes a 20% wage cut to bring the global system back into balance. They suggest that the alternative to huge wage cuts is global depression, and the best alternative is inflation and dollar devaluation.

And something like that is going to happen. Working Americans get screwed. Their wages fall, and their heath care costs are headed up. Savers get screwed. Inflation, low as it is, is higher than interest rates on savings accounts. Small investors get screwed by the likes of Goldman Sachs.

What’s missing from the list? I don’t see any sign that the rewards to giant capital and rich investors should go down. Apparently, they are immune from the haircut rule: in a financial disaster everybody takes a haircut.

The financial elites are insulated from the disaster they caused. They break the system and wreck the lives of the people whose sweat created the capital, but they don’t pay. Congress and the Administration want to look ahead. No new taxes on the rich. No Tobin Tax, which we know would be a great idea, because markets would react badly. No serious regulation of too-big-to-fail businesses.

I’m sure we all feel better that some people are safe from the financial disaster. Maybe a colleague of Hadas, Hutchinson and Currie, Paul Sullivan of the NYT, can write up an explanation of how hard it is on the rich that somewhere other people are hurting so they can maintain their lives and suck up some cool cars with all that cool bonus money.

[jasi2006]

1. If the costs of insurances, goods and services, are reduced,

I could go along with this. Bring the costs/salary ratios back to what they were in the 60's. Everyone makes out better.

[bsd13]

2. Sorry but American factory workers

are living in and buying American. They aren't trying to support themselves in a 2nd or 3rd world country. You can't compare American cost of living vs. Mexico's cost of living. They don't even begin to equate to one another.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Fuck the Times

Just how much are their reporters, photographers and editors paid?
A lot better than most folks.

[Orrex]

4. New York Times Columnists are Overpaid Says Orrex

[old mark]

5. Cut wages 20 % and expect people to buy homes, cars, "insurance",

food, services at the highest rate in the world.

I am constantly amazed that US citizens take this bullshit from the rich and we haven't had a real uprising. Amazing.
Half of France would be on strike if this ran in the French press.

mark

[stray cat]

6. Relative to the rest of the world it is cheaper for companies to go elsewhere

but Americans with less money won't serve their purpose for existence which is to buy stuff. However, jobless Americans don't buy much either.

[guitar man]

7. Overpaid my ass

My salary remains stagnant while my health insurance premiums skyrocket and they have the gall to print something like this? They should be flogged! :grr;

[Deja Q]

43. Which means your net income shrinks.

When not wages stagnating (or going down in some cases), the cost of living compensates.

Then some jackass says "competition lowers prices", and nobody's supposed to notice the number of insurance companies and how high the premiums keep going... or the disparity of drug prices... (oh dear, yet another reason and someone else said it a few days ago - US patients subsidize the cost of drugs around the world. That's why Canada and other countries get drugs for so little while we pay through the teeth for the same things -- made in China, and there've been recalls on some of those too. Not to mention the usual "Canadian drugs are unsafe" bullshit. So why is any drug made outside of the US if safety is such a concern, which it fucking well isn't, because it's just about their profits? I'm about to say the P-word now...

Pigs.

[Mari333]

8. Multinational bastard corporations wont be happy

until they can pay all of their workers 20 cents a day. and use child labour in every country .
no one reads labor history in the USA anymore, and how the unions formed due to the torturous working conditions here at the turn of the century.
what vile vile scum these people are who send jobs to countries where workers are paid slave labour wages and have no protections, all so that the wealthy can pad their offshore accounts, buy their yachts and multi million dollar mansions, off the backs of the poor.
They are the robbers and cattle barons reborn.

Oh, how I wish people would rise up.

in the meantime, they have destroyed the middle class in america, so who the fuck is going to buy their products.? no one.

let them go down in flames, the scumsucking vermin that they are.


this once again proves that having all the money in the world does not buy you an ounce of CLASS.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Right on point again, as usual , Mari.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. Short sighted, profit/bottom line driven, vile evil scum!

[havocmom]

30. That isn't enough concessions for them. They want no environmental regs too

Low wages not the only reason manufacturing moves abroad. Look at the crap that flows from overseas factories. The big multi-nationals want to shit all over the planet without any bothersome rules.

[Deja Q]

46. K&R your response!

[frustrated_lefty]

9. It recently came to light that the average pay for a public transit

worker in Philly is 52k/year. Not to knock public transport, but just how much skill is required to drive a bus?

I certainly don't mean that anyone shouldn't make a living wage. But, I have a PhD in the biomedical sciences and barely make that kind of salary. I routinely work with life-threatening pathogens, and spent an extra 10 years in post-undergraduate education to make the same salary as a bus driver? Something about that strikes me as being not properly balanced.. *shrug*

[AllentownJake]

12. You should be paid more

Doesn't mean the bus driver should be paid less.

[whathehell]

16. You nailed it....

Living wages for all.:patriot:

[Orwellian_Ghost]

17. It's not that people should be paid more

It's that we should all be allowed to live on less.

This means drastic cost reductions in housing, affordable public transportation, single-payer health care, and so on.

[Deja Q]

49. And education. If bankers can whine about salaries and ROI, why the fuck can't the rest of us?

What with expensive education for jobs claimed to be in high demand that pay well under $30k, which includes "medical transcriptionist".

[ret5hd]

24. For some reason some people seem to see others as cheating them rather than...

rather than seeing themselves as being cheated.

[SammyWinstonJack]

25. Exactly!

[HillbillyBob]

35. So true, Frustrated Lefty should be paid more.

My partner is a professional who has had his salary drop by over 40% in the last 10 years.

Then again have you ridden on a bus or other transport? I had done in town or in the Fort Lauderdale to Miami by city bus travel a lot over the last 20 years in So Fla, I have seen a lot of what bus drivers put up with from riders and other drivers. Crazy people, plain jerks, cranky folks, lost.

[Deja Q]

48. Nimble and to the point.

(Still, when someone says "This job doesn't require much", perspective as to why it does require something is also good. I need people to remind me of perspective all the time too... :) )

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Does the bus driver pay less for groceries than you do?

Does it bug you that pro basketball players make more in a year than you will in your lifetime?

[laughingliberal]

26. I would think the answer to that would be to attempt to change the wage structure of your industry

not to lower the wages of others. Everyone deserves a living wage.

[frustrated_lefty]

36. Let me re-iterate:

I stated: "I certainly don't mean that anyone shouldn't make a living wage." A lot of the replies to my innocent little post suggest that I indicated the wages earned by others should be lowered. That is a bit irritating because I was very careful to avoid even suggesting that possibility.

I DO think that anyone who works a full work-week SHOULD make a living wage.

At the same time, I also think there is something imbalanced when a unionized worker with a class B license makes better pay than someone who invested in over 10 years training to develop the expertise to work in a highly specialized field which contributes directly to the quality of life of human beings in general.

Does this mean I believe said worker should bring home a smaller paycheck? No, not necessarily, although I do happen to believe unions are no longer focused on protecting workers and are instead struggling to see just how much they can suck out of the system. The once noble funtion served by unions has turned into something far less righteous.

I also think it's an indication of how little value our society places on education and innovative thinking at this point in time. That's something increasingly evident all the way from primary teacher's salaries through to the incomes of research scientists.

How am I supposed to tell my child to pursue advanced education, incurring substantial debt, when she can start making a better salary ten years earlier minus the debt by simply driving?

[laughingliberal]

37. All true. Did not mean my response to sound like a slam.

I have the same frustrations. Worked as an RN for 25 years and never felt we were paid sufficiently for the responsibility we had. Just had a friend the other night tell me her MFA was a big waste of money. With the cost of higher education these days it doesn't much pay in terms of financial gain. Sad, but true.

[Deja Q]

47. Lots:

1. People chattering in the background
2. traffic on the road - the driver has to be focused

Have you ever driven a bus?

You bet your sweet bippy that's a fair price. Assuming we value human life, which I increasingly doubt. ("Christian nation", my big pasty white butt.)

After all, it's been said airline pilots make $20k. That's criminally low for what they have to do.

[PVnRT]

10. I think those three fuckwits are overpaid

Amazing how it's never the ivory-tower elitist assholes like this who are making too much money. No, it's always the factory workers and the like.

[hughee99]

11. Well, the Boston Globe (owned by the NYT) just cut it's employee salaries significantly.

They used the old, "you can take pay cuts or get laid off" negotiating strategy.

[get the red out]

13. Bastards

These bastards don't want workers they want slaves. This kind of thinking is what is wrong with the world, the desire to cheap goods a slave wages.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Anyone who thinks the NY Times is "far left" need only look at that article

The Republicans (and DLCers) share a common belief: That poor people have too much money and rich people don't have enough. (I heard Jesse Jackson say that once, but I'm told it's not original with him.

[Kokonoe]

18. If CEO's worked for profit, that logic would apply to them.

Their not working for the company.

[HughBeaumont]

21. Ha ha, that's a hot steaming mound of bullshit.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/86

[ThomWV]

22. They would have us living in mud huts and shitting on the walking paths

[patrice]

23. And Foreign and Off-Shore Corporations are Over-Protected from Tariffs & Taxes.

That makes them Overpaid too, doesn't it?

[NNN0LHI]

27. NYT's beady eyed Andrew Ross Sorkin perpetuated the $70 per hour UAW worker myth

The little prick.

NYT sucks.

Don

[blogslut]

28. Or...

Increase the wages of workers in other countries. That would be another way to balance things but it's funny how nobody wants to do that.

[NNN0LHI]

29. They want us to compete against someone who's last job was knee deep in water in a rice paddy

Won't that be fun?

Don

[anonymous171]

39. Are you going to go to China and lobby the government for fair wage laws?

:eyes:

[Deja Q]

41. Well, helping others is a Christian thing to do. I never believed our country was truly Christian.

[kentuck]

31. What a pile of horseshit!

The American worker has been underpaid since the day Jimmy Carter requested unions to withhold from asking for any pay increases, in order to fight the inflation problem of that time. Since then, employers have brought down the wages by bringing women into the workforce and paying both men and women less in the process.

[bullwinkle428]

32. These bastards have learned well from their mentor, Greenspan!

:mad:

[Deja Q]

44. Please spell his name correctly:

"GreedScam"

:D

(Badly set-up joke, you are a cool DUer. :) )

[slackmaster]

33. Fuck those fucking arrogant fucktards at the NYT

I work hard for what I get paid.

[Deja Q]

51. So do I. So do most Americans.

Pity the corporate elite want everything for nothing and then our tax money when their own greed dares to rob them of their own ill-gotten riches, which came from us. Talk about wealth-redistribution... the teabag twerps have it reversed... ditto for the death panels.

[closeupready]

34. When the ratio of CEO pay to line worker has escalated to 450:1 from 70:1 in the 1980's,

you need know nothing else to know that the problem is not that line workers make too much, but rather than CEO pay needs to come down, so as to distribute income more equitably. At some point, civil disorder is going to break out if the rising inequality doesn't stop.

[Deja Q]

52. I read 40:1 in 1980, and depending on source 600:1 up to 800:1 today.

With globalization and labor devaluation*, I expect the number to easily top 1000:1.

Yet everyone else is overpaid.

Bullshit on that.


* Lincoln isn't just spinning in his grave. Attach a propeller and he'll fly out of it and hit the stratosphere.

[dusmcj]

38. a lot of us toked on poppa Reagan's crackpipe

we wanted to be one of those cardboard people in the Cadillac commercial ca 1988 too. You know, the ones with the upscale home, the upscale accessories, the upscale spouse and the upscale children. 30 years of bubble economies lead to strange effects in the financial system, as does a complete lack of national industrial policy papered over by vague exhortations to participate in a consumer economy based on low-utility goods and services.

DUH.

[Deja Q]

40. They can rot in hell. They lower wages, fire workers, lose real profits, demand we bail them out.

Oh, no American is going to be happy now thanks to that stinking offal of an article...


40 years, wages have been stagnant or dropping. The dollar had so much more power in 1979 for the working class. Yet companies think that $12/hr is too much. It was great in 1979...

of course, their own profits are immune -- even if our tax dollars have to subsidize them. Ironic as even the US will run out of money one day and I don't see China or India or Brazil or anyone else keen on subsidizing these guys... they need us, just as the rest of the world does when there's a war, when there's food or monetary aid to be given out... America was always a key stone. Still is. And corporate greed is so blind... puke-a-rama, I swear...

Get these guys back down to Earth. Their disdain for their own countrymen is mind-boggling. Or is it ignorance?

[Deja Q]

42. Are they speaking of radio shock jocks like rush libmaugh? $38 million damn right is too much.

[anonymous171]

45. Man, a maximum wealth cap is starting to look real nice right about now.

[Deja Q]

50. Except those who would be impacted would say they'd lose interest - due to bad pay, which means

they just blew every goddamn excuse they have for lowering working class wages. We work hard, work smart, pay our own way for higher education... and we're not allowed to have a right for a good ROI like how they do? Especially when our tax dollars bail these people out?!