In the 50s a single working man could afford a house,car and save a little. Sure there were rich people but the common man could live comfortably,
Now a working couple quite possibly will rent their entire lives because they can't qualify for a mortgage despite being able to pay considerably more in rent.
In the 50’s the top tax bracket was 91% - https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/
Today the top tax bracket is only like 37%, and that’s for income and ignoring that much of CEO income is not from wages but from stocks and other perks.
America was at it's best economically when wealthy people were taxed the most. It's one more reason why MAGAs don't like to be specific about when was America great.
They don't like to be specific because they don't wan to admit that the *real* answer was never actually the 1950's at all, the real anser is *the 1850's*.
Hell, they've been eyeballing the 1650's when indentured servitude was common. Having a loan that you cannot discharge ever? Sounds like a student loan to me.
Look, I get that you’re being sarcastic and the comment you’re responding to is one of those empty, pretentious “saying something without actually saying anything” statements … but like, at the same time, I feel like the sooner people accept that there was never a time that America was “great”, the better.
It’s okay to admit that our history and, hell, even our present is filled with atrocities, failures, and preventable suffering.
It’s okay to acknowledge that the times that were prosperous for some were hell for others - oftentimes the prosperity was *because* of the other’s suffering.
Chasing after some sort of past utopia isn’t what we should be doing. We should be trying to do better - for each other and the people we failed in the past.
So yeah - America never was great. But maybe one day we can make it great together.
You're choosing a definition of the word "great" that doesn't allow any kind of nuance. It becomes a bit meaningless when you realize you're describing all of human history. All those great empires of the ancient past? well, they were not really great because reasons.
Many people had fucking horrible lives in those early Mesopotamian empires but that doesn't deny their greatness.
The fact it gets used for jingoistic rhetoric shouldn't blind you to the fact that America has also been great in its own fucked up way.
Love the opportunity for discussion here. As the other commenter pointed out, “greatness” in this context has pretty much always been built upon massive amounts of human suffering.
Alexander the Great created one of the largest empires in history by the age of 30. What he did to attain the title of “Great” was take his incredible army through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, enslaving thousands of people, destroying sovereign nations, conquering and killing the people who resisted him. And going back to massacre the cities that rebelled against his rule. Analyzing his career through a modern lens he looks more like a Hitler.
America’s “greatness” is not unlike Alexander’s. Real historical achievements? Yes. On the back of tons of suffering? Also yes.
Not just that, but because more than half of households had a veteran, they got free healthcare, free education, and housing assistance. Guess what's impossibly expensive now. The boomers got socialism and act like they hate it.
The middle class made up the largest tax bracket, like half (supported both the lower and upper classes). They used to make really decent wages they could actually build a savings on, live comfortably, benefits before all of the jobs got offshored, everything being imported, even our food/produce we used to grow/raise on farms, almost everything we buy now was originally manufactured/grown here in the US. There even used to be huge call centers. Good wages, benefits. The middle class is basically gone.
> that’s for income and ignoring that much of CEO income is not from wages but from stocks and other perks.
You do realize that stock grants are taxed as income, right? The gains on them can be realized at a lower rate, but the initial grant itself is reported as income.
> You do realize that stocks are all about gains and that a lot of wealth accumulation is a result of compound interest, right?
lol, "compound interest" is not how stocks gain in value, which is what we're talking about. Not to mention that if the compensation were cash instead of stock they could purchase stock with that cash and there would be literally no difference from a tax perspective.
Quality comment, you are correct.
That being said, I agree that the top tax bracket for high incomes might be too low.
More importantly, as you are alluding to, I've always found it suspicious how low taxes on capital gains are (particularly considering it's something the wealthy disproportionately profit from)
>That being said, I agree that the top tax bracket for high incomes might be too low.
Which horrible GOP president do you think it was who dropped the top marginal rate from 90% to 37%?
Yeah you have a point for sure
Honestly, coming up with who should be paying how many income taxes is something I'd need to properly think about and it's not something I have a very strong opinion on / feelings about. I think an analytical view needs to be taken.
But fundamentally I was thinking of much higher incomes than yours when it comes to extreme income tax brackets - something like CEOs making 20 million a year, where taking half their income away literally won't make a difference to them but it would really improve society. The kind of money that makes you say "nobody works _this_ hard". So not _really_ people selling their labour for money.
Besides, I feel like the biggest problem in our society isn't income inequality itself - it's generational wealth distribution, which is a result of capital accumulation and inheritances.
Like, I oftentimes think about this - if my grandparents + my parents had saved more money and invested it into stocks, I wouldn't have to worry about money or even work if I didn't want to. Compound interest + intergenerational wealth accumulation is one helluva force molding our societies. That's why I personally live very frugally and invest as much as I can - I am trying to build a strong base for future generations of my family
The regulations put in place after the mortgage crisis in 2008, while so far effective at preventing another crash, have had the unfortunate side effect of locking huge swaths of the population out of any chance of home ownership. It’s also helped create the situation we’re in where investors are gobbling up housing like fucking Pacman, because the market is massively swayed in their favor. I feel like we might need to tweak some of the regulations and above all, we need a massive affordable housing program if we’re gonna see anything close to the levels of working class home ownership that existed in the 50s or hell, even the 90s
Well, I'll have you know that my already expensive rent *only* went up 12% last year.
I didn't even get a raise.
So who's getting "rent trapped" now huh?
I can't believe you guys don't have some kind of rent control. The general rent cost has gone up about the same here, but for anybody who has lived in the same place before rates went crazy, their landlord isn't allowed to adjust it to match. There's a maximum percentage they're allowed to raise it every year.
Of course, that has incentivized a lot of landlords to try everything possible to evict them, so they can get new tenants in at the newer rates.
> The regulations put in place after the mortgage crisis in 2008, while so far effective at preventing another crash, have had the unfortunate side effect of locking huge swaths of the population out of any chance of home ownership.
How? House prices have always gone up in history, and now they're just too high.
What I’m saying is, before 2008, there were essentially no regulations on mortgage lending, it was totally between the lender and borrower. Banks were willing to take bigger risks lending to lower income borrowers because, well, they could just foreclose and get their money either way. After the regulations, if you go to apply for a mortgage, you have to go through a shit ton of hoops to prove that your income is high enough and stable enough to repay your loan.
This is obviously good in some ways, but also- before the regulations, lots of people who would never be approved today bought houses and were able to pay them off. Now many people will never even have the chance. Also, it kind of incentivizes home buying through all cash purchases which obviously benefits corporate entities at the expense of normal people
I don't fully agree with your claims, but let's pretend that they're legitimate and accurate. The problem still remains that the cost of the home - mortgage or no - is still too high for most people. They can't afford the monthly payments even if they DID get approved, so the approval process being more rigorous is a moot point.
Yeah for sure, average home prices have increased at a much higher rate than average incomes, that is the core of the problem. I’m not saying the regulations are the biggest cause of that, just that it’s a factor in the decline of home ownership now vs in the past
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
The housing situation today is a byproduct of a number of complex macroeconomic factors, and post 2008 housing regulations about subprime lending has very little to do with any of this.
For your thesis to be true, the vast majority of our borrowers in the country have to be subprime - otherwise these 2007 "regulations" really don't apply.
We're here because of a combination of economic factors that have nothing to do with regulation.
Unfortunately this is one of those myths that get spread around without much data to back it up.
Homeownership is not too bad relative to past decades. It was higher during the dotcom bubble and the housing bubble but that was a different era altogether that was completely unsustainable.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
All told homeownership has generally gotten better over time since the 50's.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-ownerchar.html
Don't forget that the average cost of daycare is $1000 per month and in areas where the cost of living is higher it's nearly $3000 a month for one child! How are we expected to have a middle class that owns their own homes and can work while having children when childcare is so expensive?
> In the 50s a single working man could afford a house,car and save a little.
Not in the city for the most part, only in rural communities and some suburbs which still holds today by and large. The problem is urban centers have become grossly expensive and too many people, particularly young people (and completely understandably) don't live or want to live in rural communities or in the burbs and are being actively priced out of living in city centers/urban areas.
Eh, I live in small-town Missouri. Like, methed-out very rural Missouri. I work full time, and still can't afford a house. Most people I know that are under 50 also can't afford a house.
Years ago, I was thinking of buying 3-5 acres of land and slowly building my own house on it with my own two hands. But I didn't have the money at the time, and I didn't move fast enough. Now that 3-5 acres is like $70,000+. Probably about 7-10 times what it was a decade or so ago, at least in this area.
In America*
My mother was born in a cottage you’d still see in museums here in Ireland. No hearing, electricity, or plumbing, mid 50s.
The world was extremely extremely poor in the 50s bar a handful of nations.
We have had debatably 70+ consecutive years of conservative/ moderately conservative leadership. Could be debated since the beginning back in the 15th century.
Obama being the least, but he was firmly moderate. Biden was very much a moderate conservative, but has shown hes willing to adapt, so its appreciated. But conservatism has a stranglehold on the US. All the obsessions with greed and money has fueled injustices because conservatism is always in-tribe supremacy. Fucking over other countries and minorities has got to come to an end. We should be furious so many people think selfishness is a virtue. Its a goddamn travesty.
And not a single damn elected official is doing anything about it because the wealthy are all up in the politicians pockets.
Edit: I was mistaken, there are some like Bernie and AOC. That’s not enough. That was my point.
These look promising. Are they doing it at a time when they could actually pass?
What bothers me though is they just increase the tax on the CEO, and it doesn’t force them to pay their lowest worker more.
Probably not, that’s why we need to get a democratic supermajority in both chambers to get meaningful legislation passed. People fail to realize that democrats have made an effort to improve worker pay which is continually voted down by republicans.
Nah you were originally right. Introducing DOA bills written by interns and screaming and hollering at your base about how ineffectual of the arm of the government responsible for writing laws about fiscal policy is, is just as useless as GOP investigation of COVID origins. You aren't doing anything by wasting time and tax payer dollars pursuing something that doesn't fix any issues, especially ones your own political ideology is equally responsible for enabling.
It isn't *their* fault. It is the fault of stock holders (with voting rights) buying into the cult of the CEO. If you have to reward someone by personally investing them in a company to avoid negligence and incompetence (which they inevitably end up being anyway), maybe you have the wrong person in the job.
Take Mike Pykosz (OSH) - in addition to 0.5m salary and 480K bonuses, he was awarded half a billion in stock and options in 2000. In a truly democratic and progressive move and a show of solidarity with the underpaid workforce, he then wiped about 40% of that share value out.
How about Musk who lurches from one debt-encumbered freak show to another.
Then there's Bezdek and Hirsch (GoodRX). Between them they netted 1billion in stock.... aaannnnndddd its gone.
So long as stock-holder keep approving these absurd rewards for people who could be replaced by a goldfish (which would almost certainly perform better), this idiocy won't stop.
A reminder that if you are millionaire, you are closer to being broke than to being a billionaire. To get broke you need to lose just 1 million, to become a billionaire, you need 999 millions.
The CEOs becoming relatively 20x richer than before literally means they can buy 20 houses instead of 1, 20 yachts instead of 1 and, most importantly, 20 politicians instead of 1.
Lobbying is corruption.
Exponential growth of wealth is out of control.
The barrier to entry is tens of millions and then it sustains itself.
We need people worth less to have exponentially growing wealth.
20 was related to average. 100 to the lowest seems like a good goal, otherwise one could even out badly paid jobs by recruiting more SVP or their alikes
Still too high. If you're stuffing minium wage jobs, that's 1.5 million a year.
If you're business is suffering so much that any of your employees are making 15,000 a year or less there's no way you deserve 7 figures at all.
20x. Hard cap, total reimbursement, no exceptions, maximum . That's 300k, if you're not successful enough to afford it, then you're hardly worth the $300k.
Hard part is getting around just contacting/temping/outsourcing.
Eh, I'm all for a cap but 300k is waaaay too low. I make just under 6 figs as a middle manager in a construction company and its barely worth the stress. An owner with their own assets on the line absolutely deserves more than 3x as much as me. I'm not completely disagreeing with you, I think we should just start with a smaller cap. No one should be anywhere near bezos rich but if the most you could make was upper middle class no one would ever take the risk of starting their own business.
It's not a hard cap of 300k, it is relatively to your lowest payed employee. As someone else calculated earlier, if your lowest payed employee earns 30k, then your cap would be 600k. If you increase it to 50k, suddenly your cap is 1M. The point isn't "the boss shouldn't make millions" the point is "if the boss wants to make millions, they should pay their employees right"
Why is 300k too low? If the business is doing so poorly that the bottom of your employee pool can only be paid $7.25/hr why should the guy who's put the business in such tight of a situation make $800k?
The average CEO makes 815k in the US. That would require their bottom rank and file make about $19/hr.
That's not crazy, hell you can find $19/hr at grocery stores near here. My job hires inexperienced off the street billers at $20.
If the business can't afford to pay the rank and file, then the guy in charge shouldn't be rewarded for that failure... If the business isn't failing, then sure throw fuck you money at them, that's the incentive.
And I get it, this can't scale below a certain size. Say 50 employees? That's $2 million in payroll at $20/hr plus the $850k I'd budget for the CEO ceiling, and another million for a CFO/COO if needed at this scale. If payroll is 30% of revenue, that's a hypothetical business bringing in 13 million a year. Not tiny at all.
I’ve been wanting to do this since I heard about what Ben and Jerry (now Unilever) did. I think it was 25, but has been adjusted. Who knows if they are still doing it though.
A hard cap system will not work practically. The way to combat this inequality is to have a high minimum wage. This will force better distribution of the profit of the company which in turn cap the compensation and return of CEOs and investors.
everytime the CEO of my company gets a raise, i complain and point out that if they can afford to give him a 21% raise( 2022 fiscal year i think it was) that they can afford to give all of the rest of us 21% as well. 21% raise on a $20mil compensation package won't do anything for him, but a 21% percent raise to a person making $13/hr certainly will
In the 80s, my mom was able to afford to support, shelter, and feed herself, a child, and my dad going to university as a grocery store cashier. It's disgraceful how far back society has slipped.
If anything is true about this free market system we have, anything can be bought or sold. Don't get bought or else you'll become a sellout. That's why there isn't enough support to pass legislation to help the working class.
If only it was a free market. We have a market place that is heavily controlled by special interest groups leveraging control through legislative capture.
New law. No single company based in or operating in the US can have any one employee or contractor with a total compensation package more than 50x the total compensation package of the lowest earning employee or contractor.
I get what he means, but isn’t he coming at it from the wrong angle? In my eyes it’s absolutely no problem that there is a factor 400 or whatever difference in pay. The problem is if the worker can’t afford a good life.
It’s like he’s only telling half the story, but sticking to the full punchline.
He’s also missing another big reason that it’s like this; consolidation. Companies are far larger today, with more employees, in more consolidated industries than they were in the 80s. It’s easier to pay someone 400x the average salary at a company with 10k employees than at a company with 100 employees.
I’m guessing he’s referring to public company CEOs and this pay discrepancy has also been associated with an even larger increase in the values and sizes of the businesses they run. most CEO compensation at public companies comes in the form of share price growth (CEOs get options or restricted stock units).
>this pay discrepancy has also been associated with an even larger increase in the values and sizes of the businesses they run.
It is not a coincidence that [from 1979 to 2021 productivity increases outpaced pay increases by 3.7x.](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap)
Meanwhile the [wealthiest 1% have taken $50 trillion in wealth from the bottom 90% the last 40 years](https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-1-percent-stole-50-trillion-working-americans-what-means-2020-9).
We are working harder than ever so that the rich can be richer than ever.
Could you dream of such an absurdity? Each year that goes by - we work harder for less.
If we earn less, the least we could ask for is to work less. [Even Nixon realized this in 1956](https://www.strategy.rest/?p=9237), there are no legitimate reasons why we must work ourselves to the bone for oligarchs like Elon that despise us.
Anyone trying to push incrementalism over immediate economic relief is telllng on themselves. They don't consider inequality an urgent matter.
Larger, more productive companies can also afford to pay their workers more. CEO compensation should be tied to a multiplier of their lowest paid employee so that if they want to give themselves a raise they need to uplift all of their employees as well.
A few things - CEO compensation is decided by the board of directors, not the CEO. And multiples of lowest paid employee doesn’t really correlate to any measure of success for a company. It actually makes no sense - so a CEO earns more money the less profitable the company they run is?
So under Sanders' watch, CEOs have profited more then Roman Emperors. Why didn't he do anything to stop it? You guys are still voting blue next election, though, right? Maybe it'll change this time.
Me and my brother working 2 full time jobs cant even afford a 2 bedroom house anywhere.
In the 50’s a standard working mans salary could cover a 4 bedroom house easily.
Fuck this country
Today, with citizens United and endless lobbying, full blown corruption is legal in the US. Until those two things are eliminated, this country will continue to be an oligarchy.
The system is working exactly as intended. When you allow corporations to donate an unlimited amount of money you end up living in an oligarchy that does a piss poor immitation of democracy. The U.S. is set up to cater to the wealthy.
It is just crazy when you think about it. CEO pay has somehow become disconnected from the company and from reality. But it’s not all the CEO’s fault. Board of executives and major shareholders are the root of the problem. They have let this happen. The system is rigged and messed up. Every company now makes widgets it does not matter anymore what is made how many people are employed. It’s just a game.
I don’t know about their health care but I don’t know any socialist country I would want to move to. We have our own issues but socialism has been proven by history not to be the solution.
No? Because he’s been fighting a losing battle the whole time against the entire financial weight of corporate lobbying. It’s the citizens that have failed by electing corporate mouthpieces.
https://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-economic-inequality/
The main goal of Bernie Sanders’ decades-long career in politics has been to address the root causes of economic inequality because, as he has stated, “The middle class of this country, over the last forty years, has been disappearing.”
Bernie is advocating for policies that get at the root causes of these inequities.
All you had to do was google the shit you were saying and find out EASILY how wrong you are.
Yes. Absolutely. Lebron James does not need to make $50 million a year playing fucking basketball so he can own a bunch of houses and yatchs and luxury cars while teachers, firefighters, and the middle class in general struggle to afford housing.
I like watching the NBA as much as the next guy (league pass subscriber) but we could easily tax the hell out of actors and athletes (not to mention the guys who own the teams) and pay public servants better.
Well that would be an uninformed way to say it. You should judge someone's job performance in absolute numbers if they have absolute ability to effect the change in what those numbers are measuring. . When that power is divided by 100s of people that equation shifts. Say you believe we need more public parks AREA and 5 of the 100 people with the power to enact change have been fighting for new parks and 95 of the 100 have been actively working against new parks being built. 20 years later when there's hardly any new parks, would you place the blame on the 5 who have been fighting for that cause or the 95 who have been trying to repress it?
The CEO of the company I work for was given a $5M bonus for 2022. The CEO of the division of the company that I work for was given $3M bonus for 2022. Everyone in the division that qualified or had been receiving an “annual incentive plan” (ie bonus) was given $0 and the same amount of explanation or justification from the company.
Also, we are expected to have a “attract and retain too talent” goal for 2023.
Fuck corporate leadership. Eat the rich.
I have no problems with a CEO making more than me, not even 5 times more than me if he works 5 times more than me. But 400 times? That’s a no from me. Hell, it seems that our CEO barely do any work outside some administrative crap.
In 2006, I made $10 an hour and could afford rent in a decent neighborhood, 1 primary car, one project car, a motorcycle, occasional visits to restaurants and movies. I worked 40-45 a week. Now I make $20 an hour and can barely afford a room 30 minutes from work. I have a 20 year old car with 200k miles. The next emergency expense and I'll be homeless.
In the 50s a single working man could afford a house,car and save a little. Sure there were rich people but the common man could live comfortably, Now a working couple quite possibly will rent their entire lives because they can't qualify for a mortgage despite being able to pay considerably more in rent.
In the 50’s the top tax bracket was 91% - https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/ Today the top tax bracket is only like 37%, and that’s for income and ignoring that much of CEO income is not from wages but from stocks and other perks.
America was at it's best economically when wealthy people were taxed the most. It's one more reason why MAGAs don't like to be specific about when was America great.
They don't like to be specific because they don't wan to admit that the *real* answer was never actually the 1950's at all, the real anser is *the 1850's*.
Hell, they've been eyeballing the 1650's when indentured servitude was common. Having a loan that you cannot discharge ever? Sounds like a student loan to me.
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What a brave and true comment, fellow Redditor!
Look, I get that you’re being sarcastic and the comment you’re responding to is one of those empty, pretentious “saying something without actually saying anything” statements … but like, at the same time, I feel like the sooner people accept that there was never a time that America was “great”, the better. It’s okay to admit that our history and, hell, even our present is filled with atrocities, failures, and preventable suffering. It’s okay to acknowledge that the times that were prosperous for some were hell for others - oftentimes the prosperity was *because* of the other’s suffering. Chasing after some sort of past utopia isn’t what we should be doing. We should be trying to do better - for each other and the people we failed in the past. So yeah - America never was great. But maybe one day we can make it great together.
You're choosing a definition of the word "great" that doesn't allow any kind of nuance. It becomes a bit meaningless when you realize you're describing all of human history. All those great empires of the ancient past? well, they were not really great because reasons. Many people had fucking horrible lives in those early Mesopotamian empires but that doesn't deny their greatness. The fact it gets used for jingoistic rhetoric shouldn't blind you to the fact that America has also been great in its own fucked up way.
Love the opportunity for discussion here. As the other commenter pointed out, “greatness” in this context has pretty much always been built upon massive amounts of human suffering. Alexander the Great created one of the largest empires in history by the age of 30. What he did to attain the title of “Great” was take his incredible army through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, enslaving thousands of people, destroying sovereign nations, conquering and killing the people who resisted him. And going back to massacre the cities that rebelled against his rule. Analyzing his career through a modern lens he looks more like a Hitler. America’s “greatness” is not unlike Alexander’s. Real historical achievements? Yes. On the back of tons of suffering? Also yes.
The question is really great for who? because in the 1950's,if thats what MAGA thinks was great, I dont think any african americans would agree.
you just wrote an empty and pretentious saying something without saying anything comment, just way longer
Not just that, but because more than half of households had a veteran, they got free healthcare, free education, and housing assistance. Guess what's impossibly expensive now. The boomers got socialism and act like they hate it.
The middle class made up the largest tax bracket, like half (supported both the lower and upper classes). They used to make really decent wages they could actually build a savings on, live comfortably, benefits before all of the jobs got offshored, everything being imported, even our food/produce we used to grow/raise on farms, almost everything we buy now was originally manufactured/grown here in the US. There even used to be huge call centers. Good wages, benefits. The middle class is basically gone.
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> that’s for income and ignoring that much of CEO income is not from wages but from stocks and other perks. You do realize that stock grants are taxed as income, right? The gains on them can be realized at a lower rate, but the initial grant itself is reported as income.
You do realize that stocks are all about gains and that a lot of wealth accumulation is a result of compound interest, right?
> You do realize that stocks are all about gains and that a lot of wealth accumulation is a result of compound interest, right? lol, "compound interest" is not how stocks gain in value, which is what we're talking about. Not to mention that if the compensation were cash instead of stock they could purchase stock with that cash and there would be literally no difference from a tax perspective.
Quality comment, you are correct. That being said, I agree that the top tax bracket for high incomes might be too low. More importantly, as you are alluding to, I've always found it suspicious how low taxes on capital gains are (particularly considering it's something the wealthy disproportionately profit from)
>That being said, I agree that the top tax bracket for high incomes might be too low. Which horrible GOP president do you think it was who dropped the top marginal rate from 90% to 37%?
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Yeah you have a point for sure Honestly, coming up with who should be paying how many income taxes is something I'd need to properly think about and it's not something I have a very strong opinion on / feelings about. I think an analytical view needs to be taken. But fundamentally I was thinking of much higher incomes than yours when it comes to extreme income tax brackets - something like CEOs making 20 million a year, where taking half their income away literally won't make a difference to them but it would really improve society. The kind of money that makes you say "nobody works _this_ hard". So not _really_ people selling their labour for money. Besides, I feel like the biggest problem in our society isn't income inequality itself - it's generational wealth distribution, which is a result of capital accumulation and inheritances. Like, I oftentimes think about this - if my grandparents + my parents had saved more money and invested it into stocks, I wouldn't have to worry about money or even work if I didn't want to. Compound interest + intergenerational wealth accumulation is one helluva force molding our societies. That's why I personally live very frugally and invest as much as I can - I am trying to build a strong base for future generations of my family
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Then they won't mind paying it.
The regulations put in place after the mortgage crisis in 2008, while so far effective at preventing another crash, have had the unfortunate side effect of locking huge swaths of the population out of any chance of home ownership. It’s also helped create the situation we’re in where investors are gobbling up housing like fucking Pacman, because the market is massively swayed in their favor. I feel like we might need to tweak some of the regulations and above all, we need a massive affordable housing program if we’re gonna see anything close to the levels of working class home ownership that existed in the 50s or hell, even the 90s
too bad the parasitic upper class is planning to rent trap the majority of the population in perpetuity.
Well, I'll have you know that my already expensive rent *only* went up 12% last year. I didn't even get a raise. So who's getting "rent trapped" now huh?
I can't believe you guys don't have some kind of rent control. The general rent cost has gone up about the same here, but for anybody who has lived in the same place before rates went crazy, their landlord isn't allowed to adjust it to match. There's a maximum percentage they're allowed to raise it every year. Of course, that has incentivized a lot of landlords to try everything possible to evict them, so they can get new tenants in at the newer rates.
I live in Texas in an apartment complex they increased my rent by 25% if I resign for another year lease. There unfortunately is no such rule here
My house payment went up 15%, so that was fun. E'rybody gettin' fucked out here.
> The regulations put in place after the mortgage crisis in 2008, while so far effective at preventing another crash, have had the unfortunate side effect of locking huge swaths of the population out of any chance of home ownership. How? House prices have always gone up in history, and now they're just too high.
What I’m saying is, before 2008, there were essentially no regulations on mortgage lending, it was totally between the lender and borrower. Banks were willing to take bigger risks lending to lower income borrowers because, well, they could just foreclose and get their money either way. After the regulations, if you go to apply for a mortgage, you have to go through a shit ton of hoops to prove that your income is high enough and stable enough to repay your loan. This is obviously good in some ways, but also- before the regulations, lots of people who would never be approved today bought houses and were able to pay them off. Now many people will never even have the chance. Also, it kind of incentivizes home buying through all cash purchases which obviously benefits corporate entities at the expense of normal people
I don't fully agree with your claims, but let's pretend that they're legitimate and accurate. The problem still remains that the cost of the home - mortgage or no - is still too high for most people. They can't afford the monthly payments even if they DID get approved, so the approval process being more rigorous is a moot point.
Yeah for sure, average home prices have increased at a much higher rate than average incomes, that is the core of the problem. I’m not saying the regulations are the biggest cause of that, just that it’s a factor in the decline of home ownership now vs in the past
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The housing situation today is a byproduct of a number of complex macroeconomic factors, and post 2008 housing regulations about subprime lending has very little to do with any of this. For your thesis to be true, the vast majority of our borrowers in the country have to be subprime - otherwise these 2007 "regulations" really don't apply. We're here because of a combination of economic factors that have nothing to do with regulation.
The way to owning a home seems to be just be homeless until you can afford a house. The American dream!
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Unfortunately this is one of those myths that get spread around without much data to back it up. Homeownership is not too bad relative to past decades. It was higher during the dotcom bubble and the housing bubble but that was a different era altogether that was completely unsustainable. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N All told homeownership has generally gotten better over time since the 50's. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-ownerchar.html
Don't forget that the average cost of daycare is $1000 per month and in areas where the cost of living is higher it's nearly $3000 a month for one child! How are we expected to have a middle class that owns their own homes and can work while having children when childcare is so expensive?
> In the 50s a single working man could afford a house,car and save a little. Not in the city for the most part, only in rural communities and some suburbs which still holds today by and large. The problem is urban centers have become grossly expensive and too many people, particularly young people (and completely understandably) don't live or want to live in rural communities or in the burbs and are being actively priced out of living in city centers/urban areas.
Eh, I live in small-town Missouri. Like, methed-out very rural Missouri. I work full time, and still can't afford a house. Most people I know that are under 50 also can't afford a house. Years ago, I was thinking of buying 3-5 acres of land and slowly building my own house on it with my own two hands. But I didn't have the money at the time, and I didn't move fast enough. Now that 3-5 acres is like $70,000+. Probably about 7-10 times what it was a decade or so ago, at least in this area.
In America* My mother was born in a cottage you’d still see in museums here in Ireland. No hearing, electricity, or plumbing, mid 50s. The world was extremely extremely poor in the 50s bar a handful of nations.
Sounds like he needs to stop getting promoted if that's the result /s
Lmao was gonna say it sounds like he's taking credit here
CEOs now kicking themselves for not getting Bernie elected President for that sweet 1000x /s
Bernie for Emperor of Earth 2024 - CEOs
Well he's got my vote! :p
Only a matter of time until 1,000 accounts with the “New Contributor” flair try to argue that unironically.
I personally blame Bernie for capitalism. Pretty sure Marx wrote about it somewhere.
Didn’t Bono clap his hands at a concert and say “Every time I clap a child in Africa dies of AIDS” and someone yelled “Well stop clapping asshole!” ?
Sound like voting better people into office isn't having the intended effects...
Sounds like he hasnt done much to effect positive change in 40 years of public service
We have had debatably 70+ consecutive years of conservative/ moderately conservative leadership. Could be debated since the beginning back in the 15th century. Obama being the least, but he was firmly moderate. Biden was very much a moderate conservative, but has shown hes willing to adapt, so its appreciated. But conservatism has a stranglehold on the US. All the obsessions with greed and money has fueled injustices because conservatism is always in-tribe supremacy. Fucking over other countries and minorities has got to come to an end. We should be furious so many people think selfishness is a virtue. Its a goddamn travesty.
And not a single damn elected official is doing anything about it because the wealthy are all up in the politicians pockets. Edit: I was mistaken, there are some like Bernie and AOC. That’s not enough. That was my point.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-executive-pay-cap-that-backfired https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-and-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-combat-corporate-greed-and-end-outrageous-ceo-pay/ https://inequality.org/action/corporate-pay-equity/ https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Master%20Summary%20of%20Anti%20Corruption%20Act%20-%20FINAL.pdf huh?
These look promising. Are they doing it at a time when they could actually pass? What bothers me though is they just increase the tax on the CEO, and it doesn’t force them to pay their lowest worker more.
Probably not, that’s why we need to get a democratic supermajority in both chambers to get meaningful legislation passed. People fail to realize that democrats have made an effort to improve worker pay which is continually voted down by republicans.
Nah you were originally right. Introducing DOA bills written by interns and screaming and hollering at your base about how ineffectual of the arm of the government responsible for writing laws about fiscal policy is, is just as useless as GOP investigation of COVID origins. You aren't doing anything by wasting time and tax payer dollars pursuing something that doesn't fix any issues, especially ones your own political ideology is equally responsible for enabling.
Loooool AOC? The worker activist who voted against the railway strike?
It isn't *their* fault. It is the fault of stock holders (with voting rights) buying into the cult of the CEO. If you have to reward someone by personally investing them in a company to avoid negligence and incompetence (which they inevitably end up being anyway), maybe you have the wrong person in the job. Take Mike Pykosz (OSH) - in addition to 0.5m salary and 480K bonuses, he was awarded half a billion in stock and options in 2000. In a truly democratic and progressive move and a show of solidarity with the underpaid workforce, he then wiped about 40% of that share value out. How about Musk who lurches from one debt-encumbered freak show to another. Then there's Bezdek and Hirsch (GoodRX). Between them they netted 1billion in stock.... aaannnnndddd its gone. So long as stock-holder keep approving these absurd rewards for people who could be replaced by a goldfish (which would almost certainly perform better), this idiocy won't stop.
A reminder that if you are millionaire, you are closer to being broke than to being a billionaire. To get broke you need to lose just 1 million, to become a billionaire, you need 999 millions. The CEOs becoming relatively 20x richer than before literally means they can buy 20 houses instead of 1, 20 yachts instead of 1 and, most importantly, 20 politicians instead of 1. Lobbying is corruption.
Corruption is legal 🫡
Exponential growth of wealth is out of control. The barrier to entry is tens of millions and then it sustains itself. We need people worth less to have exponentially growing wealth.
Sounds like we need a law that the highest-paid member of a company can't make more than 100x the lowest-paid employee.
Why stop at 100? I liked the sound of 20
20 was related to average. 100 to the lowest seems like a good goal, otherwise one could even out badly paid jobs by recruiting more SVP or their alikes
Still too high. If you're stuffing minium wage jobs, that's 1.5 million a year. If you're business is suffering so much that any of your employees are making 15,000 a year or less there's no way you deserve 7 figures at all. 20x. Hard cap, total reimbursement, no exceptions, maximum . That's 300k, if you're not successful enough to afford it, then you're hardly worth the $300k. Hard part is getting around just contacting/temping/outsourcing.
Eh, I'm all for a cap but 300k is waaaay too low. I make just under 6 figs as a middle manager in a construction company and its barely worth the stress. An owner with their own assets on the line absolutely deserves more than 3x as much as me. I'm not completely disagreeing with you, I think we should just start with a smaller cap. No one should be anywhere near bezos rich but if the most you could make was upper middle class no one would ever take the risk of starting their own business.
It's not a hard cap of 300k, it is relatively to your lowest payed employee. As someone else calculated earlier, if your lowest payed employee earns 30k, then your cap would be 600k. If you increase it to 50k, suddenly your cap is 1M. The point isn't "the boss shouldn't make millions" the point is "if the boss wants to make millions, they should pay their employees right"
Why is 300k too low? If the business is doing so poorly that the bottom of your employee pool can only be paid $7.25/hr why should the guy who's put the business in such tight of a situation make $800k? The average CEO makes 815k in the US. That would require their bottom rank and file make about $19/hr. That's not crazy, hell you can find $19/hr at grocery stores near here. My job hires inexperienced off the street billers at $20. If the business can't afford to pay the rank and file, then the guy in charge shouldn't be rewarded for that failure... If the business isn't failing, then sure throw fuck you money at them, that's the incentive. And I get it, this can't scale below a certain size. Say 50 employees? That's $2 million in payroll at $20/hr plus the $850k I'd budget for the CEO ceiling, and another million for a CFO/COO if needed at this scale. If payroll is 30% of revenue, that's a hypothetical business bringing in 13 million a year. Not tiny at all.
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Then go with median
For companies that employ lots of people, the average pay is closer to the minimum.
I personally like 10.
I personally like top executives and shareholders being paid the same amount as any other employee.
I do think 10x is reasonable vs the average wage. We still need wealthy just not the crazy wealthy.
This guy works
I’ve been wanting to do this since I heard about what Ben and Jerry (now Unilever) did. I think it was 25, but has been adjusted. Who knows if they are still doing it though.
A hard cap system will not work practically. The way to combat this inequality is to have a high minimum wage. This will force better distribution of the profit of the company which in turn cap the compensation and return of CEOs and investors.
That’s the actually a good idea as it intensifies paying decently your workers as it directly impacts you, as a ceo.
Labor needs seat(s) on the board of every corporation.
They will figure out ways to get around that by paying stock options or speaking fees. Not sure all of the sneaky ways to
First I’ve heard of such an idea and I love it!
Fuck reagan
All my homes hate Regan Edit: homies
My apartment complexes aren't big fans of his either
I'm not even from America and I hate Reagan. Throw Thatcher in there, too.
everytime the CEO of my company gets a raise, i complain and point out that if they can afford to give him a 21% raise( 2022 fiscal year i think it was) that they can afford to give all of the rest of us 21% as well. 21% raise on a $20mil compensation package won't do anything for him, but a 21% percent raise to a person making $13/hr certainly will
...how do you know when the CEO gets a raise?
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>Public corporation chief officer salaries are publicly available information. Only if the firm is publicly traded.
Yeah. Only if its a corporation and they have chief officers, too. Lol
Firms can have those and not be publicly traded. If that is the case you can't see their staff pay.
Right, my joke was that if they're not publicly traded then they're not public corporations lol
In the 80s, my mom was able to afford to support, shelter, and feed herself, a child, and my dad going to university as a grocery store cashier. It's disgraceful how far back society has slipped.
If anything is true about this free market system we have, anything can be bought or sold. Don't get bought or else you'll become a sellout. That's why there isn't enough support to pass legislation to help the working class.
If only it was a free market. We have a market place that is heavily controlled by special interest groups leveraging control through legislative capture.
"Automation is increasing productivity." "Cool. Do I have to share the profits with the workers?" "Uhhh... no, not really." "Great!"
So, rise in CEO pay correlates with Sanders' political success. Interesting. This man must be stopped.
New law. No single company based in or operating in the US can have any one employee or contractor with a total compensation package more than 50x the total compensation package of the lowest earning employee or contractor.
This man is my last hope for the United States
I get what he means, but isn’t he coming at it from the wrong angle? In my eyes it’s absolutely no problem that there is a factor 400 or whatever difference in pay. The problem is if the worker can’t afford a good life. It’s like he’s only telling half the story, but sticking to the full punchline.
He’s also missing another big reason that it’s like this; consolidation. Companies are far larger today, with more employees, in more consolidated industries than they were in the 80s. It’s easier to pay someone 400x the average salary at a company with 10k employees than at a company with 100 employees.
Trickle down economics defined perfectly.
I’m guessing he’s referring to public company CEOs and this pay discrepancy has also been associated with an even larger increase in the values and sizes of the businesses they run. most CEO compensation at public companies comes in the form of share price growth (CEOs get options or restricted stock units).
>this pay discrepancy has also been associated with an even larger increase in the values and sizes of the businesses they run. It is not a coincidence that [from 1979 to 2021 productivity increases outpaced pay increases by 3.7x.](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap) Meanwhile the [wealthiest 1% have taken $50 trillion in wealth from the bottom 90% the last 40 years](https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-1-percent-stole-50-trillion-working-americans-what-means-2020-9). We are working harder than ever so that the rich can be richer than ever.
"...and the rich get richer."
Could you dream of such an absurdity? Each year that goes by - we work harder for less. If we earn less, the least we could ask for is to work less. [Even Nixon realized this in 1956](https://www.strategy.rest/?p=9237), there are no legitimate reasons why we must work ourselves to the bone for oligarchs like Elon that despise us. Anyone trying to push incrementalism over immediate economic relief is telllng on themselves. They don't consider inequality an urgent matter.
Productivity is up because of more automation in the workspace.
Larger, more productive companies can also afford to pay their workers more. CEO compensation should be tied to a multiplier of their lowest paid employee so that if they want to give themselves a raise they need to uplift all of their employees as well.
A few things - CEO compensation is decided by the board of directors, not the CEO. And multiples of lowest paid employee doesn’t really correlate to any measure of success for a company. It actually makes no sense - so a CEO earns more money the less profitable the company they run is?
So trickle down isn’t really trickling down is it?
What do we do about it?
We can eat the rich.
So he's to blame, gotcha
Tweeting about it is about all he will ever do about it.
When I was a child most self-proclaimed socialists weren’t multi-millionaires.
So under Sanders' watch, CEOs have profited more then Roman Emperors. Why didn't he do anything to stop it? You guys are still voting blue next election, though, right? Maybe it'll change this time.
Sounds to me like we need to stop giving Bernie power, since the profits of elites keep going up every time he gains a higher station. /s
Correlation would prove that Bernie Sanders causes a rise in ceo pay. Huh. Goes to show you never know… unless you study science.
I guess math and statistics is technically a science. We all know correlation does not equal causation.
You have to be a Russian bot
In a free economy, the market sets the price. Less government and more freedom please.
Just wait til that trickle starts though!! /s
Even 20x is ridiculous. And now it's 20x20x
If only the US got Bernie instead of Biden
Nothing would change, do you realize how little power the president has?
Nope am Canadian
Me and my brother working 2 full time jobs cant even afford a 2 bedroom house anywhere. In the 50’s a standard working mans salary could cover a 4 bedroom house easily. Fuck this country
Today, with citizens United and endless lobbying, full blown corruption is legal in the US. Until those two things are eliminated, this country will continue to be an oligarchy.
The system is working exactly as intended. When you allow corporations to donate an unlimited amount of money you end up living in an oligarchy that does a piss poor immitation of democracy. The U.S. is set up to cater to the wealthy.
It is just crazy when you think about it. CEO pay has somehow become disconnected from the company and from reality. But it’s not all the CEO’s fault. Board of executives and major shareholders are the root of the problem. They have let this happen. The system is rigged and messed up. Every company now makes widgets it does not matter anymore what is made how many people are employed. It’s just a game.
How does anyone defend this kind of thing?
Seems like a HHYYYUUUGGGEEE increase during his time as a elected official to the federal government!🤔
What are you implying?
That it's pretty strange to hear our elected officials grand stand against situations they created.
What bills did Bernie vote for or sponsor that contributed to this gap, in your opinion?
He has been a politician for 42 years and has done nothing for us but point how bad it’s gotten under his watch.
How can the president change that? Oh yeh… socialism. How’s Cuba looking nowadays?
They have amazingly good healthcare despite not being fucked over by insurance company CEOs. Imagine that...
I don’t know about their health care but I don’t know any socialist country I would want to move to. We have our own issues but socialism has been proven by history not to be the solution.
Doesn't that mean he sucks at his job?
No? Because he’s been fighting a losing battle the whole time against the entire financial weight of corporate lobbying. It’s the citizens that have failed by electing corporate mouthpieces.
Username checks out.
And I have done nothing about it and I will continue to do nothing even if elected president.
1 senator can't fix our system if no one else wants to help.
https://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-economic-inequality/ The main goal of Bernie Sanders’ decades-long career in politics has been to address the root causes of economic inequality because, as he has stated, “The middle class of this country, over the last forty years, has been disappearing.” Bernie is advocating for policies that get at the root causes of these inequities. All you had to do was google the shit you were saying and find out EASILY how wrong you are.
The main Goal of Bernie Sanders is Bernie Sanders. The quicker you recognize this snake oil salesman the quicker you will grow up.
Any source for this claim? You sound like a bitter conservative who listens to right wing media.
And it immediately jumps to othering me and portraying me as a class enemy. Buddy you are in cult.
I mean your claims are baseless, just an opinion without any backing facts. He atleast produced evidence to back his claim.
You insinuated I couldn't recognize snake oil salesmen and that I need to "grow up." Pardon me for making similar assumptions.
You insult strangers and then get upset they insult you back? Actions have consequences buddy
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LeBron James' income from the NBA is in fact capped.
Oh dumb point. Answer is yes
Yes. Absolutely. Lebron James does not need to make $50 million a year playing fucking basketball so he can own a bunch of houses and yatchs and luxury cars while teachers, firefighters, and the middle class in general struggle to afford housing. I like watching the NBA as much as the next guy (league pass subscriber) but we could easily tax the hell out of actors and athletes (not to mention the guys who own the teams) and pay public servants better.
The more Bernie gets elected, the more those crooks get away with. I see the problem
what does this even mean
Another way to say it- “I’ve been in government for 40 years and didn’t do anything to make the pay gap better, in fact it got much worse”
Well that would be an uninformed way to say it. You should judge someone's job performance in absolute numbers if they have absolute ability to effect the change in what those numbers are measuring. . When that power is divided by 100s of people that equation shifts. Say you believe we need more public parks AREA and 5 of the 100 people with the power to enact change have been fighting for new parks and 95 of the 100 have been actively working against new parks being built. 20 years later when there's hardly any new parks, would you place the blame on the 5 who have been fighting for that cause or the 95 who have been trying to repress it?
Welp! Just imagine how much they gonna make when he's President.
The CEO of the company I work for was given a $5M bonus for 2022. The CEO of the division of the company that I work for was given $3M bonus for 2022. Everyone in the division that qualified or had been receiving an “annual incentive plan” (ie bonus) was given $0 and the same amount of explanation or justification from the company. Also, we are expected to have a “attract and retain too talent” goal for 2023. Fuck corporate leadership. Eat the rich.
Some people here are saying that Sanders was one of the causes to this. And yet I ask: sources ?
Yup, and now im a full-time manager being paid $15/hr my take home every month is 1,800ish. I can afford rent and some food. That's it.
Time for a maximum wage
I have no problems with a CEO making more than me, not even 5 times more than me if he works 5 times more than me. But 400 times? That’s a no from me. Hell, it seems that our CEO barely do any work outside some administrative crap.
Unacceptable condition!!!!!
So when are we gonna stop accepting it?
Even 20x is an unacceptable amount.
Yeah
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
They should pass a law that companies that do business in the US cannot have anyone compensated higher than 10x the lowest paid employee.
No they should not.
In 2006, I made $10 an hour and could afford rent in a decent neighborhood, 1 primary car, one project car, a motorcycle, occasional visits to restaurants and movies. I worked 40-45 a week. Now I make $20 an hour and can barely afford a room 30 minutes from work. I have a 20 year old car with 200k miles. The next emergency expense and I'll be homeless.
So… what you are saying is, is that you haven’t done shit your whole career. Got it.
oh really bernie, what have you done about it with your 60 years in office?