The meritocracy is a lie: The wild myths that allow CEOs, hedge funders and the 1 percent to outearn

[Sallow]

A few years ago I was invited to speak to a group of employees at a power plant who were considering whether to form a union. One young man who intended to vote against it told me he was worth no more than the fourteen dollars an hour he was then paid. “I say for these people making their millions, that’s fantastic. I could have done the same thing if I went to school and had the brains for it. I do not, so I’m a laborer.”



The man apparently had no knowledge of the 1950s, when more than 30 percent of the nation’s private-sector workforce was unionized. That gave the nation’s blue-collar laborers enough bargaining power to summon the equivalent (on average, and in today’s dollars) of thirty dollars an hour—even though many hadn’t finished high school. It wasn’t their brains that accomplished this. It was their bargaining clout. But the power of trade unions to negotiate good wages for hourly workers has declined markedly since then. That’s why the young man I met was “worth” no more than fourteen dollars an hour.


The meritocracy is a lie: The wild myths that allow CEOs, hedge funders and the 1 percent to outearn us all - Salon.com

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

A few years ago I was invited to speak to a group of employees at a power plant who were considering whether to form a union. One young man who intended to vote against it told me he was worth no more than the fourteen dollars an hour he was then paid. “I say for these people making their millions, that’s fantastic. I could have done the same thing if I went to school and had the brains for it. I do not, so I’m a laborer.”



The man apparently had no knowledge of the 1950s, when more than 30 percent of the nation’s private-sector workforce was unionized. That gave the nation’s blue-collar laborers enough bargaining power to summon the equivalent (on average, and in today’s dollars) of thirty dollars an hour—even though many hadn’t finished high school. It wasn’t their brains that accomplished this. It was their bargaining clout. But the power of trade unions to negotiate good wages for hourly workers has declined markedly since then. That’s why the young man I met was “worth” no more than fourteen dollars an hour.


The meritocracy is a lie: The wild myths that allow CEOs, hedge funders and the 1 percent to outearn us all - Salon.com

dear, in this country we let the free market market set the price of labor and everything else. Are you a lib commie, a Nazi??The idea of letting unions violence set price is anti-american. Do you want to use liberal violence to set all prices??

See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance??

 

[Sallow]

A few years ago I was invited to speak to a group of employees at a power plant who were considering whether to form a union. One young man who intended to vote against it told me he was worth no more than the fourteen dollars an hour he was then paid. “I say for these people making their millions, that’s fantastic. I could have done the same thing if I went to school and had the brains for it. I do not, so I’m a laborer.”



The man apparently had no knowledge of the 1950s, when more than 30 percent of the nation’s private-sector workforce was unionized. That gave the nation’s blue-collar laborers enough bargaining power to summon the equivalent (on average, and in today’s dollars) of thirty dollars an hour—even though many hadn’t finished high school. It wasn’t their brains that accomplished this. It was their bargaining clout. But the power of trade unions to negotiate good wages for hourly workers has declined markedly since then. That’s why the young man I met was “worth” no more than fourteen dollars an hour.


The meritocracy is a lie: The wild myths that allow CEOs, hedge funders and the 1 percent to outearn us all - Salon.com

dear, in this country we let the free market market set the price of labor and everything else. Are you a lib commie, a Nazi??The idea of letting unions violence set price is anti-american. Do you want to use liberal violence to set all prices??

See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance??

Actually it is your mindset that is based on fear, anger, racism, greed and bloodlust.

If the devil was real, he'd be a conservative.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

If the devil was real, he'd be a conservative.

so our Founders were devils? No wonder our liberals spied for Hitler and Stalin.

 

[Sallow]

If the devil was real, he'd be a conservative.

so our Founders were devils? No wonder our liberals spied for Hitler and Stalin.

Most of the Founders were Liberals. Conservatives had very little input into the Constitution. Retention of Slavery is perhaps their crowning achievement. Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold were the Conservative founders.

 

[Obiwan]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

 

[Sallow]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

 

[Obiwan]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

And yet the richest got richer, during the slowest recover since the Great Depression....

 

[Sallow]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

And yet the richest got richer, during the slowest recover since the Great Depression....

Lemme guess.

You would have let the street fold like Lehman and watched our car companies go overseas.

That would have learned them by gumption!

 

[Obiwan]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

And yet the richest got richer, during the slowest recover since the Great Depression....

Lemme guess.

You would have let the street fold like Lehman and watched our car companies go overseas.

That would have learned them by gumption!

Like GM, which outsources 2/3 of it's jobs, AFTER we bailed them out???
Outsourcer-In-Chief: Obama Of General Motors

U.S. government says it lost $11.2 billion on GM bailout | Reuters

 

[Sallow]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

And yet the richest got richer, during the slowest recover since the Great Depression....

Lemme guess.

You would have let the street fold like Lehman and watched our car companies go overseas.

That would have learned them by gumption!

Like GM, which outsources 2/3 of it's jobs, AFTER we bailed them out???
Outsourcer-In-Chief: Obama Of General Motors

U.S. government says it lost $11.2 billion on GM bailout | Reuters

Your first link doesn't go anywhere and your second link is a year old.

Time to catch up.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/business/gm-earnings-soar-in-2nd-quarter.html?_r=0


GM Doubles Profit in North America to Record on Truck Surge

 

[PoliticalChic]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

The mortgage meltdown can be laid directly at the feet of Democrat policies.

1. Democrat FDR shredded the Constitution....ignoring article I, section 8, the enumerated powers.

He created GSE's Fannie and Freddie to do something the Constitution didn't authorize: meddle in housing.


2. Democrat Carter....the CRA, constraining banking policy


3. Democrat Clinton....strengthened the CRA

Under Clinton, HUD threatened banks, again, to give unrequited loans.

Henchmen: Democrats Cisneros and Cuomo.


4. Democrats Frank and Dodd barred any governmental discipline in this area.

 

[Mac1958]

All a part of the "you didn't build that, you didn't earn that, that doesn't belong to you" strategy.

 

[Obiwan]

Actually, the reason the rich have been getting richer is... OBAMA!!!!

7 setbacks for the middle class

Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still falling short of his number one goal: to fix the economy for the middle class.

Sure, a recovery has been underway for most of his presidency, but it's still slow and uneven. And despite Obama's focus on the middle class, the improvement so far has largely benefited corporations and the ultra-rich.

Miss the whole Bush financial meltdown did ya?

And yet the richest got richer, during the slowest recover since the Great Depression....

Lemme guess.

You would have let the street fold like Lehman and watched our car companies go overseas.

That would have learned them by gumption!

Like GM, which outsources 2/3 of it's jobs, AFTER we bailed them out???
Outsourcer-In-Chief: Obama Of General Motors

U.S. government says it lost $11.2 billion on GM bailout | Reuters

Your first link doesn't go anywhere and your second link is a year old.

Time to catch up.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/business/gm-earnings-soar-in-2nd-quarter.html?_r=0


GM Doubles Profit in North America to Record on Truck Surge

So where's that extra $11.2 Billion they owe us???

Did Obozo just give it to the Fat Cats for a Christmas present for being good and shipping American jobs overseas to increase profits???

 

[warf]

Bill Clinton, a pretty good Republican president ( yea, I know he puts a D after his name) signed the repeal of Glass Siegal that allowed the financial breakdown of 2008. He signed NAFTA that allows American corporations to shut down here and import foreign made good duty free.

Then Bush drained our treasury by starting unwinnable wars and created the Mid East mess that's still taking our wealth.

A recent Senate bill to revoke the tax credit for moving manufacturing off shore and institute a tax credit for expenses in returning to this country was defeated after all Republicans voted no.

You ideologues are the problem. You elected this terrible congress and keep electing corporate presidents. After all our worker screwing trade deals there is no longer any basis for economic recovery.

 

[Obiwan]

Obamanomics: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer | Human Events


The data comes from a massive survey of consumer finances conducted by the Fed Board of Governors every three years. Many other studies have also shown the lasting effects of the recession and documented rising income disparity in the United States.

Well, I’m sure the toddlers with say it’s all Bush’s fault. Once we’re down to just adults in the room, we can talk about this as part of Obama’s failure to steward anything resembling a healthy recovery. He handed off a lot of money to his rich cronies, he worked up monetary policy that amounts to running an IV tube from the Treasury to Wall Street, he implemented policies that crushed job creation and encouraged the conversion of full-time jobs to part-time work, and he’s given us a titanic Food Stamp Nation whose residents find the notion of seeking employment illogical. It’s not surprising that the rich would get richer, while the poor got poorer.

The Fed survey released suggests that wealth and income is concentrated not just within the top 1 percent, as some analyses have suggested, but actually among a slightly broader slice of the ultra-rich: the top 3 percent.

From 2010 to 2013, average income for U.S. families rose about 4 percent after accounting for inflation, the survey showed. All of the income growth was concentrated among the top earners, the survey showed, with the top 3 percent accounting for 30.5 percent of all income.

The disparity was even greater by wealth, with the top 3-percent holding 54.4 percent of all net worth in 2013, up from 51.8 percent in 2007 and 44.8 percent in 1989.

 

[ClosedCaption]

A few years ago I was invited to speak to a group of employees at a power plant who were considering whether to form a union. One young man who intended to vote against it told me he was worth no more than the fourteen dollars an hour he was then paid. “I say for these people making their millions, that’s fantastic. I could have done the same thing if I went to school and had the brains for it. I do not, so I’m a laborer.”



The man apparently had no knowledge of the 1950s, when more than 30 percent of the nation’s private-sector workforce was unionized. That gave the nation’s blue-collar laborers enough bargaining power to summon the equivalent (on average, and in today’s dollars) of thirty dollars an hour—even though many hadn’t finished high school. It wasn’t their brains that accomplished this. It was their bargaining clout. But the power of trade unions to negotiate good wages for hourly workers has declined markedly since then. That’s why the young man I met was “worth” no more than fourteen dollars an hour.


The meritocracy is a lie: The wild myths that allow CEOs, hedge funders and the 1 percent to outearn us all - Salon.com

dear, in this country we let the free market market set the price of labor and everything else. Are you a lib commie, a Nazi??The idea of letting unions violence set price is anti-american. Do you want to use liberal violence to set all prices??

See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance??

Here's a great example of how this person has been so thoroughly brain washed that they believe that wanting a decent living is bad and those who want it should be deterred by this jackass' name calling. Money? Who needs it?


Just dont call me a commie!! While the rich dont worry about being called commies because they will buy enough land to be far away from name callers anyway

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I never understand why Progressives just don't fucking move to Cuba or Venezuela or some other Progressive Utopia. A friend of mine just came back from Cuba and tells me the Island only just got WiFi for non-governmental employees in anticipation of the Papal visit.

Fuck

And you Progressives STILL won't hop an inner tube to Fidel

 

[ClosedCaption]

I never understand why Progressives just don't fucking move to Cuba or Venezuela or some other Progressive Utopia.

Because its not about running from something its about change. But you not understanding is just part of you being you

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I never understand why Progressives just don't fucking move to Cuba or Venezuela or some other Progressive Utopia.

Because its not about running from something its about change. But you not understanding is just part of you being you

I hope Trump deports you. You fuckers keep saying "Change" but it's never for the better and you're too fucking brainwashed to know the difference

The Shortest straw Rumsfeld Clown avatar = lol