The Exploitation of the Many by the Few

I noticed an article the other day.

Apparently, Goldman Sachs owns a major piece of Burger King.

The article basically made the point that if you took the total bonus pool of Goldman Sachs and extended it to all the Burger King employees, they each would have received an $18,000 bonus, which is in excess of the average BK salary of $14,000.

Significantly, Goldman Sachs took billions in federal bailout money and still gave out bonuses. Several years ago I remember reading that the average total compensation at Goldman Sachs -- including secretaries, administration, clerical -- was $600K. We can only imagine what people at the most senior levels got.

So here's my point: are we better off with the few making so, so much and the many struggling just to survive. Yes, of course, there are different levels of talent and it takes a lot more education and smarts to put together an M&A deal than flip burgers, but I have to question the over-exaggerated skew towards the very wealthy.

The Goldman Sachs bonuses, I'm sure, bought a lot of expensive Coops in Manhattan, McMansions in Fairfield County, Summer Homes in the Hamptons and Nantucket, yachts, exotic luxury cars and many things I can't even imagine.

Wouldn't the money have been put to better use by bringing those BK employees up from poverty levels to income levels which begin to border on adequate?

What if they gave a depression and no one came?

I took a lot of economics courses in my time (not that I remember much!)

But, despite the few things I can remember about Keynesian economics and Milton Freidman's monetary theories, I'm more confused than ever now.

What happens when almost everyone has NOTHING?

What if we just kept on doing what we're doing now -- going to work, the grocery store, the movies, everything -- but we just didn't use money.

It's a beautiful idealistic thought (I've never been accused of being a pragmatist).

The one problem, though, is some people would try to take advantage of it and the whole thing would become unglued before it got started.

Oh, well......

Is it just me or....

are advertising people the most abused class of people in the world?

It's a tough business, you put all your energy and passion into what you do, and then you get fired for trivial reasons without any regard to the quality of work you do.

I think we're all masochists!

I Don't Understand the Republicans.

They voted against the stimulus bill, calling it unnecssary spending.

In California, they won't help balance the budget.

Don't they get it?

Spending creates jobs!!!!!

If you spend $10 million to build (or repair) a bridge, that could potenially hire 100 people at 50K a year who will spend most of that at WalMart, Target, StopNShop, A&P, Ralphs, Home Depot, etc which will cause all of those stores to hire more people and their vendors to hire more people to manufacture their goods. Their's a multiplier effect of about 1.7 times the actual investment.

What do the Republicans think we should do?

Sink into a morrass of poverty?

Will Our Generation Ever Be Able to Retire?

I was thinking the other day (always dangerous!).

Our parents generation had for the most part pensions and social security.

Our generation -- unless you're a public employee or one of the dwindling number of unionized workers -- for all intents and purposes, has no pension.

If you were to look at everyone over 50 years old and cut out the top 5% in terms of net worth, I bet you (and this is strictly a guess) that the average liquid savings is less than $100K.

Social Security, as we all learned in Econ 101, is not in actuality a trust, but a transfer payment. Our generation funded the social security payments of our parent's generation. But the problem is, there were more of us than them. The situation reverses itself with the next generation.

So....

No pensions. Not a lot of savings. Dubious prospects for Social Security.

Yikes!!!!

Socialism here we come.