Do you think a laborer who makes $150,000 a year with overtime is being overpaid?

[NNN0LHI]

Anyone who thinks they are overpaid is falling for the scam.

Now these people are being overpaid:

---------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/09/the-5-best-paid-hedge-fun_n_532071.html#s79888&title=5_Steve_Cohen

The 5 Best-Paid Hedge Fund Managers (PHOTOS)

Huffington Post First Posted: 06/ 9/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 05:05 PM ET

We heard a lot about CEO pay when Wall Street firms doled out their annual bonuses earlier this year. Of course, any bonus at all could be interpreted as excessive after the massive taxpayer-funded bailouts that rescued the big banks from failure. But Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's $9 million 2009 bonus and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's $17 million bonus pale in comparison to the top hedge fund managers' paychecks.

According to a ranking by AR: Absolute Return+Alpha magazine, the top 25 best-paid hedge fund managers made $25.3 billion in 2009 -- over $1 billion each on average. (The lowest-paid on the list earned $350 million, but seven of them actually brought home more than a billion dollars.) And you've likely never heard of.the manager who made the most -- $4 billion -- this year.

Check out the top five:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/09/385941/walmart-heirs-worth-30-percent-bottom/

The Walmart Heirs Have The Same Net Worth As The Bottom 30 Percent Of Americans

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 9, 2011 at 9:45 am

Income inequality in the U.S. is currently the highest its been since the 1920s, with the 400 richest Americans (who are all billionaires) having as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined. And as it turns out, just one wealthy family has managed to amass a fortune equal to that of the combined net worth of the bottom 30 percent of Americans — the Waltons, heirs to the Walmart fortune, as Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, found:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now right there is where we need to be looking at. Not the guy who works his ass off 12 hours a day, 7 days a week sweating his balls off in some factory to provide a decent life for themselves and their families making $150,000 a year and who deserves every penny of that while tyring to made a living in this economy with the current cost of living.

For a family with one spouse working and a couple of kids to raise that is about what it takes to make it now. Yes, one person should be able to provide a decent living for themselves and and their family without having the bill collectors biting at their ass constantly. That is the way it is supposed to be for all of us. Not just the ultra-wealthy.

Every worker should make good money and be able to live that kind of life. Workers in the $150,000 range are the people who are going to buy what we are making or use the services we are providing. Its not the hedge fund managers or Walton family who do that. They put it in the bank and look at it. They don't spend it like we do. The people like this who are making $150,000 a year are not our enemy. They are our middle class who keep everything going for all of us. It is the wealthy who want us to think the person making $150,000 is our enemy. They are not our enemy.

Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is not your friend.

Don

[trumad]

1. If a laborer is making that kind of money...

He either has a rare specialty that is hard to find and pays well---or---he's working a butt load of overtime.

[NNN0LHI]

2. I stated 12 hours a day and 7 days a week in my post

In comparison I was making a hundred grand a year doing that in a factory 20 years ago. And that was about enough to keep the bill collectors off my ass back then and provide a decent life for my family.



Don

[Posteritatis]

9. I'd be pretty unoffended by a labourer working those hours getting that kind of pay

I'm more or less middle management/house IT geek at a residential restoration company whose caseload means the labourers get pretty crazy hours a lot of the time. You'd have to give them a lot of pretty ridiculous raises before the numbers got me to even consider raising an eyebrow, and they'd deserve every penny of it.

[Posteritatis]

17. *Wouldn't* be offended. (nt)

[NNN0LHI]

23. Sorry I misread your post

[rfranklin]

45. Where does a laborer make $150,000? I can't find it anywhere...

What Google does bring up is people who were killed or injured getting payments of $150,000 which would net a desk jocket millions in a settlement. Or payments of back pay that was fraudulently (and by my thinking criminally) withheld from workers who make very little.

[krawhitham]

47. $25.76 per hour

7/12s is 112 paid hours

112 * $25.76 * 52 = $150026.24

[freshwest]

59. Thanks, I was working on the math.

[eomer]

87. $34 per hour

7 x 12 = 84, so it is $34 per hour

[NNN0LHI]

94. Roughly about 112 hours of pay per week for working seven twelves with overtime premium

With overtime premium of time and a half for over 8 hours and Saturday and double time for Sunday that is about what it is. Depending on the shift it gets a little complicated because after any hours worked after midnight on Saturday are considered working on Sunday. So when we were started work at 7PM on Saturday to 7:30 AM when it was midnight we went from time and a half to double time because it was considered Sunday. Which it was. So we would get 7 hours of double time when we worked Saturday. But then we would go in on Sunday we would get 5 hours of double time and then after midnight that would revert to straight time until we had our 8 hours in and then it would go to time and a half after the first 8 hours. But we did not have a paid lunch. But we did get a 10% shift premium for working midnight shift and 5% for afternoon shift.

As I said it gets a little complicated.

Don

[justiceischeap]

3. I think it greatly depends on where this laborer lives as well

Some regions in the country people are just going to make more money. Some people are going to use those numbers incorrectly to defend their argument against paying living wages. If I work in Manhattan, chances are I'm going to make more money than if I lived in rural Alabama but my cost of living is going to increase too, so it all washes out in the end. That's the part of the argument they seem to always leave out.

[NNN0LHI]

6. That is just part of the scam that many people have been brainwashed into believing too

And you explained it well in your post when you said, "it all washes out in the end", because that is the actual truth.

Thanks for bringing it up.

Don

[hfojvt]

42. yeah, I am sick of that argument too

In California 40% of the population makes less than $36,000 a year and 80% makes less than $99,000 a year.
In New Jersey, 40% of the population makes less than $41,000 a year and 80% makes less than $116,000 a year.
In Connecticut, 40% of the population makes less than $44,000 a year and 80% make less than $121,000 a year.
In Washington DC, 40% of the population makes less than $33,000 a year and 80% makes less than $97,000 a year.

If there are so many people living in those expensive areas on less than $45,000 a year, there is no amount of living expenses that suddenly make those in the top 20% into part of the "middle".

ITEP has data for states, but not for metro areas http://www.itepnet.org/state_reports/whopaysfactsheets.php

But in places like Jersey and Conn, probably 80% of the population is in the metro area. Even in Manhattan, many, many people are living on much less than $150,000 a year, especially for one worker.

[justiceischeap]

44. Depends on what you do for a living...

If I lived in Manhattan, I'd probably make around $100k doing what I do but if I lived in a rural area, I'd make much less. I work as a web developer--granted it isn't a laborer position, though some days it feels that way, but depending on your career and your geography it can make a difference in pay.

I believe folks that fight against a living wage cherry pick their facts as I suggested. On certain, specific positions that earn more money in a geographic area. I'd imagine a demolition expert makes decent money (66K is the average) and a carpenter makes on average 33k--both would be considered a laborer position by people who argue against living wages. Guess what salary the Koch's of the world are going to highlight to make their point?

[krawhitham]

48. You are 100% right - $29 vs $45

I make $29 per hour in Ohio that same union job pays $45 in New York

[hfojvt]

54. Well since I happen to be one of the Kochs of the world

I am not even sure what point I am supposed to be trying to make, except that $150,000 a year is a lot of money, no matter where you live. It puts you in the top 20%. Not the middle 20% or even the upper middle 20%, but the top 20%. http://www.koch2congress.com/index.html

[Warren Stupidity]

70. The top 20%?

See the problem is that the scale really is logarithmic but the crude partitioning into percentiles isn't. Even 'the 1%' grossly misstates the problem. See the OP post re what the people at the actual top are taking home - they are taking home on the order of one billion or more, or spreading it out a bit, 100s of millions. And that doesn't accurately reflect accumulated wealth, which is a separate but related measurement, where the inequality and skew to the high end and the massively small size of the cohort at the top is even worse than income.

99% of the top 20% are not participating in the feeding frenzy of the New Gilded Age, even if they are better off than you and me, they are really just 'professionals' or 'managers' or other high paid work categories. They aren't the problem. They may be aiding and abetting those that really are the problem, they may be voting for more of the same, but then again given the choices who isn't?

The point is that all most all of us are really in the same boat: we are all part of the hollowing out of the middle class and the crushing race to the bottom that the neolibs have dragged us into. We are all watching our paychecks stagnate, our houses depreciate, our costs escalate while the official measures of inflation state otherwise. Divide and conquer. They have the working class in this country ready to kill each other. The plutocrats and oiligarchs are laughing, rolling on the floors of their luxury yachts as teabaggers line up to fight occupiers. What a hoot.

[hfojvt]

77. so you are worried about the Fab 400?

They are kinda insignificant when it comes to the pie. Sure they are at the top and they have a ridiculous average income of $345 million, they only get 1.59% of all the income the US economy produces. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/123

The top 20% is eating up far more of the economic pie than the top 400 people are.

In the same boat? I kinda doubt, and even when we are in the same boat, like the Titanic, those in first class get to lifeboats before those in 3rd class. "the Titanic's casualty list included 4 of 143 First Class women (three by choice) ... 15 of 93 Second Class women ... and 81 of 179 Third Class women. Not to mention the children. Except for Lorraine Allison, all 29 First and Second Class children were saved, but only 23 of 76 steerage children." "A night to remember" p. 61

Greed, I would say, is a problem all through our society, not just at the top. Everybody who wants to grab two or three slices of pie for themselves and to hell with their neighbors is part of the problem.

[Warren Stupidity]

82. "the fab 400" run the goddamn world.

Keep dreaming your happy thoughts of inter-class warfare. That is the game they are playing on us.

[hfojvt]

93. they have tremendous amounts of income, wealth and power

but running the world seems like an over-statement to me. Collectively, they have far less income than the rest of the top 1%. Does 1.59% of the income really have more power than 20% of the income?

You might dream that there is some sort of solidarity between the average mobile home renter and the people in $300,000 houses, but I don't share that illusion.

I still think that defining the word "rich" upwards does a disservice to the middle class. It allows for policies like the stupid payroll tax cut that gives 46% of its benefits to the top 20% and only 12% of its benefits to the bottom 40%. But not to worry because most of those members of the top 20%, heck even the top 1% are really just middle class working stiffs, driving their new cars to their air conditioned offices just like the rest of the working class.

[limpyhobbler]

4. well said

Lots of good points made. $150,000 usually makes you middle class. Shouldn't have to send two people out full time to support a family. Of course it also depends on the cost of living where you live at.

[former9thward]

5. I think it would be overpaid because it could not last.

A company paying 150k for "labor" would find some alternative. Technology or something else. So yes it is overpaid.

[NNN0LHI]

10. That is all well and good until no one can afford to purchase the products made using alternatives

That is about where we are at now.

How has doing that worked out for the average person?

Don

[former9thward]

15. No one has to make 150k a year to live well in this society.

If you do then your finances are out of control. I don't care where you live.

[NNN0LHI]

21. You would like people to believe that if someone gets 150 grand their finances are out of control

Because that is certainly not the case with today's cost of living.

Anyone who has been in a grocery store recently knows that.

Sorry, but I am not buying what you are selling.

Don

[former9thward]

34. I'm not buying what you are trying to sell.

I don't need 150k to go to a grocery store. 99% of the people in the store aren't making that either. If you read my post I said if you need 150k to live then your finances are out of control. I did not say if you made 150k your finances are out of control. Please read the posts.

[CreekDog]

24. arguing for lower pay for people again?

ok. except for CEO's though.

[former9thward]

37. Read the post.

I doubt you want to do that though.

[Edweird]

55. Guys in my trade can make that kind of money.

There is no 'technology' replacement. The documentation, background checks and security clearances involved make it difficult for illegals to make headway.
You can clear 10k/week working storms. Storm work is automatic double-time and you're working 16 hrs/day 7days/wk.
The downside is that you have to go where the work is at a moments notice.

[former9thward]

65. You don't mention the trade so it is difficult to respond.

[Posteritatis]

66. Friend of mine works in forestry, his working conditions are like Edweird describes. (nt)

[Edweird]

67. Linework.

[former9thward]

68. I'm not sure that would fit the definition of "laborer" which the OP was about.

My definition of that word would be a job anyone, assuming they were physically able, could do on day 1.

[Edweird]

69. Whatever. I work a blue collar labor intensive job that cannot be replaced by technology

or illegals. It's easy to earn 6 figures. Whether or not that fits the OP's description, it does address your statement.

[nadinbrzezinski]

73. And you'd be wrong

laborer includes trades too, as in very skilled trades. It means BLUE COLLAR

[former9thward]

89. Not at all.

It DOES NOT mean Blue Collar. Unless you have invented your own personal language which may be the case.

[Posteritatis]

76. "Labour" and "unskilled labour" do not perfectly overlap. (nt)

[Enrique]

7. 150,000 workers are not "keeping everything going for us"

if they are making that much money they are very fortunate. They are working extremely hard, but they are very fortunate to get that many hours (44 hours of overtime per week!), and to have a relatively very high hourly wage to begin with.

The people keeping everything going for us include people way way way way down on the income scale as well. Farm workers for example, where would we be without them?

[NNN0LHI]

13. Do you think it is the Walton family and hedge fund managers who keep everything going then?

Are there enough of them and are they the ones who are going to purchase what you are selling or use the service you provide to keep you working?

Or is it someone else?

Don

[Enrique]

18. do you agree that farm workers are absolutely vital to our economy?

farmworkers making $8.00/hr and sometimes don't even get overtime?

[NNN0LHI]

22. I think farm workers should make a lot more than they are currently making with overtime pay

That is what I think.

Don

[Abin Sur]

8. Anyone who enters into a voluntary agreement for labor cannot be overpaid by definition.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. I learned on DU that I should congratulate him for things going 'swimmingly' for him

That's a lot more than I currently make, that's for damn sure, and I recently got some harsh language for simply saying I had a job in the 80's.

[Overseas]

29. And people learn outside DU to resent the well paid laborer rather than the Top One Percent.

They are encouraged by hours of right wing radio and TV to complain about those darn government workers and their pensions instead of those whose income has soared in the US over the past thirty years.

[firehorse]

12. I'd be happy if the entire 99% got $150,000 annually for only working 4 days a week.

and 4 weeks vacation.

[Posteritatis]

14. firehorse for president of the world! (nt)

[Overseas]

30. Yeah, uh huh. A laborer getting an annual salary the same as a month's hedge fund salary

is just more of that "wanting a pony" type stuff.

[Stuart G]

19. There was a mechanic in our local transit system that made over 110 G. (200 Gs in today's money)

He worked 6 to 7 days a week, 12- 14 hours a day, overtime on top of overtime. (he was nuts)
He fixed buses. engines, parts, etc.

He was addicted to work. (this was about 10 years ago)
I remember his story was all over the front pages..
He made more than the head of the transit system..

The guy was addicted to work, he worked on holidays, at nite, day etc.
so he got a lot of money..he earned it, the union had overtime, and double..etc.
He did more work in a week fixing buses then some of the CEOs of big corps. do in a year..

[customerserviceguy]

39. It's the one addiction we reward people for

And laud them as examples to everybody else. I guess if you didn't have a spouse and kids, or even a dog waiting for you at home, it's OK. But it's the same as the pencil-thin models who populate pages and pages of advertising. I mean, hey, good for them, but don't expect the other 99.5% of us to either look like that, or live like that.

[bettyellen]

49. And salaries have been flat to lowered, he'd be really fortunate to still be allowed to pull OT,

Or to not have given up benefits or a salary cut. Just saying stories like his are rarer than ever these days, but people (not you, obvs) still trot them out as anti worker propaganda.

[Brickbat]

20. Nope.

[tularetom]

25. Nobody can keep up a schedule like that for very long

So yes of course he deserves every cent he makes. When I worked in construction I often worked 7 day weeks from April to November. When the rain and snow of winter set in I was frequently idle.

I made good money but it robbed me of time with my kids so I eventually got out and found a desk job that didn't pay near as well but allowed me to work 8 hour days (most of the time).

One other thing - if I owned a factory that employed a guy who made $150k a year working 7-12's, I'd give a lot of thought to hiring 2 guys at a lower rate and working them fewer hours. Nobody can put in those hours without their productivity suffering.

[NNN0LHI]

28. We did it for two years straight in the early 90's

They took our afternoon shift and split in half. Half of us worked 7AM to 7:30PM. The other shift worked 7PM to 7:30AM.

Then they got some kind of waiver from the state so they could break state law and make us work 7 days a week with no day off.

Used it to pay our house off. Does take a lot out of you though.

When we went back to a regular shift and workweek it felt like we were on vacation.

Don

[Tikki]

26. No...

Tikki

[Ikonoklast]

27. No, and anyone that thinks so has never been in the trenches.

Most people in the working world have no idea what it actually takes to earn that type of income doing backbreaking labor in dangerous, unpleasant circumstances.

Like the guys I knew who worked in the foundry at the Ford Cleveland Engine Plant.

Most new hires walked out before the end of the forst day.

For example, my friend's father retired from the foundry...he worked 7 days a week, and double shifts when asked, and did that for years.

And Ford was glad to have employeees like that, and paid them for their labor.

[NNN0LHI]

31. 200 of us hired into a Ford stamping plant in 1973

I was still two months away from graduating high school at the time I was hired.

Out of those 200, two of us retired with a pension. Half were gone the first day.

My brother hired in 4 years earlier with about 150 others while he was still in high school too. He was the only one out of that group to draw a pension.

Know something else? A cashier at a grocery store could expect the same or better wages and benefits as we were getting in 1973 in an auto plant. My brother actually took a little cut in pay in 1969 when he quit his union stock boy job and hired on at Ford.

Don

[hfojvt]

35. big deal, I worked a temp job at a door plant

Working a night shift, sometimes ten hour days. Three of us started Sunday night. By Monday there were two and by Wednesday, only me. Then after they chose not to hire me as a non-temp, I quit and the temp service made me work another 3 days so they could find a replacement. One night another temp started on the other side of the line, where they hung the door frames. He worked about three hours until break time, then walked out to his car and never came back.

I found that to be pretty brutal work, but I'd have stuck with it if they'd hired me. I swear though, I was hitting the wall on those ten hour shifts and had to shower before I went to bed to soothe my aching muscles. That job only paid about $9 or $10 an hour, I was making perhaps $7 an hour as a temp. Not $150,000 a year - less than $25,000 a year even with some overtime.

There was a foundry in a small town where I lived. Brutish place to work, but it did not pay that well. I worked at the satellite dish factory on the night shift. It was hot, dirty, noisy. I got $5.40 an hour to run the drill presses. Guys on the paint line there dealt with even more dirt and heat and didn't make much better money than me, if any. (I never asked Tim what he made. That factory paid a piece rate, but how do you figure piece rate on a paint line?)

After they laid me off, I worked seven weeks as a temp making industrial motor controls. That factory paid about $2 an hour more than the satellite dish factory (still only about $7 or $8 an hour in 1995 although some of the people who had been there a long time were making $10 or $11 an hour). That place was air conditioned!! And quiet! And clean! And paid more than the satellite dish factory.

Lots of people are doing backbreaking and dangerous work for a lot less than $50,000 a year to say nothing of $150,000. For a time I worked seven days a week as a janitor for a sports bar. True that was only part time, but it was six or seven hours a day, starting at two in the morning every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. $5.50 an hour and no benefits.

[hfojvt]

32. for perhaps the hundreth time, $150,000 a year is NOT middle class

90% or more of HOUSEHOLDS make less than $150,000 a year. If you make more than 90% of the rest of the country, then you are not in the MIDDLE. You are at the top.

As for being an enemy. Well, is that $150,000 worker gonna support the Bush tax cuts, or oppose them? Is that $150,000 worker gonna support cuts to SNAP and LIHEAP, or oppose them? How about raising the FICA cap - support or oppose? Are they gonna be on my side between these three plans

Plan A - making work pay credit, $500 per worker, phasing out for incomes over $75,000
Plan B - payroll tax holiday on the first $10,000 in income
Plan C - payroll tax cut of 2%

That last plan gives $240 to me and $2,120 to them. The second plan gives $620 to both of us and the first plan gives $500 to me and nothing to them.

That person makes $150,000 to my $12,000. Do you really think they care about raising me up? Or are they just living it up, living in a nicer house, buying nicer car(s), nicer clothes, bigger TVs, more Xbox games, eating out more, etc. They are gonna live on the nice side of town, far, far away from white trash like me. They won't know me or any of my friends, they won't look at any of my friends and they certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my friends.

As for overtime. Is ANYBODY really working that much overtime? 12 hour days, seven days a week? That's crazy. I certainly would not envy such a person. There is no way in hell I would want to do that. Maybe for two years so I could save up enough money to quit, but that would be a brutal two years.

But speaking of my enemy, does the person working all that overtime want the company to do more hiring so he/she could have some time off, or do they want that overtime for themself?

As for spending all of that booty, well I just got promoted, so I no longer make $12,000 a year. Now I make $30,000. I can assure you I am not gonna spend all of that extra money. I will save much of it. I will make maximum IRA contributions in order to reduce my taxes, and also to prepare for retirement, which cannot come soon enough. I would hope that a $150,000 worker would have a big pile of money that is sitting in the bank. It would be foolish for them not to.

[NNN0LHI]

36. I don't support raising the FICA cap

That goes right after the workers my post describes. The wrong ones.

The ones who put money back into our economy every day and then it gets spent again and re-spent again many times by people who may be purchasing some of the same goods or services you provide. When you give it to the wealthy it dead ends right there.

I want to start with the top earners like the Walmart family and hedge fund manager to make up for any shortfalls in SS or Medicare.

Actually I want them to pay for it all. They are the ones who got wealthy shipping our jobs overseas and making money on making the average Americans life worse. It wasn't the laborer making a good wage who screwed everything up. It was the wealthy who couldn't be happy making huge sums of money. They wanted more. More than they could ever need. Time for that to stop.

And yes the guy making $150 grand a year might be able to save some money(Loot as you call it), in the bank and have some investments for when they retire. That is the way it is supposed to be for everyone. You act like because you don't have that no one should. If you think like that you will never have it.

Listen, it is not the fault of the workers making $150 grand that you are working for $30,000. The reason you are only making the $30 grand is more the wealthy peoples fault than the guy who makes a little more and may have a savings account for a rainy day.

This is exactly how people cut their own throats and don't realize it.

Don

[krispos42]

41. I'd like to taise the cap and lower the percentage.

If there was no cap, then the percentage could be significantly lower without reducing revenue.

[hfojvt]

53. so you oppose plans that benefit me

and claim you are not my enemy?

Actually I have been saving money even at $12,000 a year, but that is just me. I am, as my roommate from Calcutta said, "the man who lives on air". All I need is the air that I breathe and to love her.

Those people making $100,000 a year seem to want more too. Many of them complain that they, too, are living paycheck to paycheck.

Well, who gets most of the pie?

In 2006, the top .1% got 11.2% of the total US income.
The next .9% got 10.9% for 22.1% to the top 1%
But the next 24% got 46.1% of the pie.
The next 25% got 19.3%
Leaving only 12.5% for the bottom 50%

The bottom gets squeezed not just because of the greed of the top .1% or the top 1%. The top 4% (the top 5% sans the top 1%) are usually grabbing all they can get too. And so are the top 9%. Most of them are not working very hard to help the bottom 50%. No, they are working either to maintain their own lifestyle or, better yet, to climb another rung up the ladder.

You cannot get everything from the Waltons and the hedge funders because they don't have all of the income, not even close.

[NNN0LHI]

57. What would benefit you and just about everyone else would be if you made more income

That is what I am saying. If more people were currently making the $150 grand, or close to it, instead of the $30 grand you are making there would be no problem fully funding every social program we currently have. Because the more they make the more those workers would be paying into FICA and other tax withholding every week. The less less they make the less money there is to fund these programs. If we had more workers paying FICA up to the current maximum today there would be no problem funding SS and Medicare. There would be extra money left over if that were the case.

It is the workers who are satisfied with making $30 grand a year and become jealous of those making more and want to take away some of theirs instead of increasing their own who screw up everything for all of us.

I am promoting that workers like yourself make more money in your paycheck which in turn gives us all more money and better benefits. You appear to want to keep taking it away from any workers who make more than you do until we are all broke. And that is exactly the mindset that got us into the predicament we are currently in.

Don

[hfojvt]

61. no what got us into this predicament

is the mindset of greed, with everybody trying to make more and more and more.

And I neither want nor need more money. I'd rather have more free time than more money.

Besides that, to increase my own, would automatically take away from the $150,000 worker. If the McDonalds workers all started getting paid $21 an hour instead of $7 well then the price of a hamburger would just have to triple. Same thing all through the economy. That money is not gonna come from nowhere. And that $150,000 worker would not be very happy if suddenly his $150,000 only bought half as much stuff as it used to. My own wage goes further because I buy stuff made by Chinese for 40 cents an hour.

Our per capita GDP is only $47,184. How do you think everybody is gonna get $150,000 out of that? You think our GDP needs to triple? Why? So we can buy even more cars and create even more pollution and congestion and traffic fatalities?

I think $47,000 is plenty if it was divided up evenly. But it is not, because some people are taking a million and others are taking $300,000 and others are taking $150,000, leaving only $30,000 and $12,000 for others.

No, we would be better off if we all said "enough" and shared more with others instead of all trying to live as large as we can.

[NNN0LHI]

63. I have plenty of laid back friends who "thought", they had plenty to retire on

Some of them used to accuse me of being greedy when we went on strike too? They never went on strike. They just took what their employers offered them and didn't complain. And they acted happy to get that. Easy going kind of people. They thought the boss was their friends.

Didn't turned out as well as it planned for a lot of them though. A couple of recessions later during the Bush administration where the wealthy were able to steal their 401K retirement money and now they are crying the blues because they are flat broke.

Hope you have better luck than they did.

Don

[hfojvt]

78. boy is that a sad statement

You got yours and now you get to look down your nose at your friends.

Thank goodness we are all on the same side.

[NNN0LHI]

81. Putting words that aren't there into another persons mouths is a dirty thing to do

So my discussion with you is permanently over with.

Don

[hfojvt]

95. "I'm a dirty skunk? I'm a dirty skunk?" Daffy Duck

Bugs Bunny whips out a sign "It's dirty skunk season"

I re-read my post a few times and do not see where I put words in anyone's mouth other than what was said.

Here's what you said about your laid-back 'friends'.

"Some of them used to accuse me of being greedy when we went on strike too? They never went on strike. They just took what their employers offered them and didn't complain. And they acted happy to get that. Easy going kind of people. They thought the boss was their friends.

Didn't turned out as well as it planned for a lot of them though. A couple of recessions later during the Bush administration where the wealthy were able to steal their 401K retirement money and now they are crying the blues because they are flat broke.

Hope you have better luck than they did."


They are "crying the blues" and "flat broke" while apparently you are not. You fought for your good wages and secure retirement by going on strike, and thus "you've got yours". Unlike your foolish friends and foolish me who may end up in the same boat.

It's not dirty for me to tell you what I heard when you say something. If you meant something else, you can always explain what you meant.

[spinbaby]

84. It is middle class

The trouble is that most Americans are no longer middle class--they're poor. What has been traditionally considered to be an American "middle class" lifestyle means a nice house in the suburbs; two reliable, recent-model cars; annual vacations; and money enough for health care, retirement, and putting the kids through college. Add up the costs and you need well over $100,000.

[NNN0LHI]

91. Someone wants us to forget that is the way it is supposed to be don't they?

The wealthy have so many people believing that it is their duty as peons to be constantly struggling.

How did this happen?

Don

[hfojvt]

92. oh bull crap

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. In many ways our parents were poorer. We had a family of seven crammed in a very small house. About half the size of the houses of three of my siblings. They carpeted that house one room at a time. Dad finished the basement by himself. We had one beat up old car until dad bought last years model station wagon in 1975. But that new car sat in the garage and was only used for camping trips. Both mom and dad went around town on bicycles (admittedly they were unusual in that regard). Our other car was a used Gremlin, bought in 1978 or so and dad tried to give it to me in 1985 when I started my first job out of college. TV was free, and our phone was a party line. And we were upper middle class.

As for health care, there was no expensive cancer treatment, which is a cost we are now all paying for.

One of the other troubles with American society is that we kids remember what our parents had when we were in our teens, not remembering the struggling years when they scrimped and saved. We get used to that level that we grew up with and expect even more for our lives without having to scrimp and save like our parents did. My parents put four kids through college because they started saving probably even before we were born. It also used to be the case that far fewer kids were going to college. Middle class kids did not goto college, upper middle class and upper class kids did.

[spinbaby]

96. I grew up in the 50s and 60s

My parents arrived in this country with nothing the year I was born. My mother never worked. On what my father made, they had bought a small, 2-bedroom house by the time I was three. When I was six, they bought that large 4-bedroom house in the suburbs. They put four kids through college--my college cost $3000 a year, including everything--and retired comfortably. My father worked in the lower tiers of a large corporation. Health care and pension were, as a matter of course, included with the job at no extra cost.

[starroute]

33. A household income of $150,000 puts you just short of the top 10%

And making that much on your own, without a second wage-earner in the household, would put you in the top 2% of people filing as single earners or the top 1% of people filing as head of household. (http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=2970)

If somebody is willing and able to work their butt off to get to that level with a blue-collar job, more power to them. But for you to say, "For a family with one spouse working and a couple of kids to raise that is about what it takes to make it now" seems disingenuous.

It suggests that you almost have to be part of the 1% to "make it" these days -- and there's something very wrong with that picture.

[NNN0LHI]

38. I will try to explain the difference

Hedge fund manager - $100,000,0000
Laborer with overtime- $150,000

See them extra 4 zeros there at the end of the hedge fund managers income compared to the laborers income?

Do you know how much of a difference those extra 4 zeros make?

Don

[hfojvt]

51. you are supposed to put a comma after every THREE zeroes

it's either 1,000,000,000 or 100,000,000 and NOT 100,000,0000

it seems to me that an extra zero makes a lot of difference too

laborer with a high wage and overtime - $150,000
me working part time because I have to -$12,000

You don't think that extra zero makes a huge difference? You think $10,000 a year and $100,000 are basically equvialent? I bet almost nobody making less than $20,000 thinks so.

Also, there are probably less than 5,000 people in America who make over $100,000,000 a year. In 2005, only 13,776 filers had income over $10,000,000. That's out of 134 million who filed tax returns. In 2007 (when they made $200 billion more than in 2008) the top .1% had an average income of $7,546,049.35. That's for the richest 139,000 families.

So that only appears to be ONE zero
7,546,049
150,000

[krispos42]

40. If it's skilled labor with lots of overtime... no.

My dad was a union operating engineer (heavy construction equipment). At the prevailing rate, if he was able to get a job working 12 hours a day six days a week, that would be the equivalent of 88 hours a week of regular pay, and that could have put him in that area.


Of course, that never happened. The overtime never lasted like that, and sometimes the regular time wasn't full, either.

[magical thyme]

43. given the vastly bloated paychecks of the 1%

I think minimum wage should be $100,000/year.

[hughee99]

46. Our enemy is the person making over a million a year...

like Bill Clinton... or those with smaller yearly incomes but with vast net-worths, like John Kerry... Or those who inherited their money, and never HAD to work for money, like Al Gore... Or those who manipulate financial markets for personal gain, like George Soros... or people who make a ridiculous amount of money for something we perceive to be easy, like athletes, actors and musicians...

Or maybe, just maybe, you can't identify your enemies just by the size of their bank accounts. We have enemies who make minimum wage, we have supporters who are billionaires.

[guitar man]

50. My best bro from high school

Is a journeyman union electrical lineman. He can make $150k plus in a year. I'd hardly call him one of "them".

I don't care how much money someone has or makes. What I find ethically and morally reprehensible is what they are allowed to buy with it. The very wealthy and their interests have been allowed to buy the democratic process right out from under us.

Reversing the citizens united decision would be an important first step in taking that process back for all of us IMO

[Initech]

52. The only people on this planet who are overpaid are Wall St. CEOs.

[Edweird]

56. I'm looking forward to making that kind of money at my labor job.

So, NO.

[Marrah_G]

58. No

The Laborer is my friend. The parasites on wall street hoarding money are my enemy.

[fujiyama]

60. They are being paid what the market will allow

Last edited Mon Dec 26, 2011, 07:00 PM - Edit history (2)

and what their employer values. No more. No employer will pay more than what they feel an employee is worth.

But no, it doesn't take $150,000 a year to support a family of four. This is just plain bullshit - and that's even in high cost of living places like northern CA and NYC. A majority of people make nowhere near that as a combined family/joint income, except in a few of the wealthiest counties in the US. Either way, I don't find working 12/7 (84 hours a week!) particularly appealing. That means basically not having a life. But what doesn't appeal to me, may to someone else.

The real problem is that we're not extracting the revenue needed from those not doing any real work. Sitting and watching investments grow isn't real work. And by these I mean the hedge fund managers, investment bankers, CEOs, and other executives primarily in the financial sector, and particularly on Wall Street. Much of what goes on in the financial sector isn't value added with no tangible goods or services being produced.

That's basically what Buffet has mentioned - for those at the very top, a lot of wealth is derived not from income but capital gains. That coupled with their access to those making laws, corrupts and subverts the democratic process. I'd actually support cutting corporate taxes if loopholes were removed, with modest gains on income (and only at the top brackets), but with higher rates on capital gains, and inheritance.

As for the wages you mention, there aren't many "laborers" making that. First of all, that sort of overtime is quite rare and for a few select positions and hard to find skill sets. It usually takes several years of experience with some educational credentials/qualifications, if not a four year degree or higher.

[NNN0LHI]

62. Think you missed my point

I said a majority of people should be making that with one income. Not a combined income, just one income should allow all of us to live like that. One.

And this is not a zero sum game either. No one should be just attempting to support a family of four on one income. There should be money left over after all the bills are paid with one income. Otherwise we might as well all be in prison. There is supposed to be enough left over to live a nice life and have some of the better things. All of us deserve that.

Because some day we will need to retire whether we think we will or not. And retirement should not be a struggle for someone who has labored all their life either. Retirement is supposed to be a fun thing. Not a nightmare of constantly trying to make ends meet.

Life is not supposed to be the constant struggle the wealthy want us to believe either. They want us to believe that but it is complete BS.

Reason I know this is because I lived during a time when just a high school educated person could expect a lifetime good paying job with pay that would provide not just the basics, but also some of the nicer things in life we all deserve as well. It kind of came with being a citizen about 40 years ago.

The wealthy do not want people to have this attitude I have expressed here, or even know it still exists. Can you blame them? This type of attitude cuts directly into their profits.

Don

[fujiyama]

64. I think people should have the opportunity to make

what the market determines. I don't say that to sound like a cold capitalist, but I don't understand how else wages can or should be set fairly. Employers will pay people what they feel they can get away with. That's also why I favor a minimum wage, and support cities determining living wage laws (depending on the cost of living).

That said, I also don't think anyone should go without the basic necessities of food, shelter, or health care. That's why like most liberals I favor a robust social safety net and universal health care (preferably along the lines of a single payer). And I believe that those profiting most from the system should give back more through taxes (especially those making their wealth primarily from capital gains).

I admit, I suppose I don't really understand your point. Do I believe that everyone should make $150,000? No, I don't. I don't understand why someone flipping burgers should make the same as a skilled laborer. The former may have a high school diploma at best. The latter will almost definitely have that as well as several years of experience and they would have gained insight and skills in their trade. How should their wages be set? I'd rather employees and employers figure that out. The same goes with any profession. Do surgeons make too much? They go through four years of undergrad, four years of med school, several years residency/fellowship...During that whole time they bust their ass. Their skills and knowledge are highly valued by society.

And I also don't understand what the "nicer things in life" are. A late model car? A vacation home by the lake? A boat? I suppose, like in Europe it may be nice if we had some mandated vacation time though, but that's a societal difference. We value money very highly, while they place a large value on free time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

72. Shh, over here... see Adam Smith, if there was ever a CAPITALIST (I mean he invented it for god's

sake) understood that no, you do not let the MARKET set salaries. You need GOOD PAY in order for workers to be able to afford to buy stuff.

Granted, in his era he was fighting MAXIMUM wage laws, not minimum wage laws.

This market determines things is the zero sum game of neo liberalism, and it comes from this essential conflict...

WHILE we need you little one to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND, we need to flatten wages world wide so a FEW can benefit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

71. I am not offended

but those jobs are rare to say the least...

Mean salary is 32K, and even people with a PhD do not make that much either.

Now in my ideal world, there would not be a minimum salary, but a MANDATORY LIVING WAGE...

But hey, at this point I do not get to set those laws, I really do not... which is one reason why OWS is in the streets.

As to the Waltons... and the rest of them tsk, tsk.. SHERMAN ANTI TRUST... it is way past time.

Oh and let me adjust this for... inflation. If we kept pay to inflation that 150K should be closer to 200,000. Oh and our minimum wage should be closer to 12 \ hour, to be able to buy the same as a generation ago... now a LIVING wage where I live comes to about 20.50 hour. Not even close to the median pay in this county. This is why POVERTY is on the way up.

[jwirr]

74. No, I would be okay with that.

[boppers]

75. I think two laborers, each making $75,000, would be better.

A guy working 12/7 has no real family life to speak of, and nobody ever died wishing they had spent more time at the factory.

As far as needing $150,000 a year for a family of four, that's some interesting budgeting, but I guess private schools, new cars, ski vacations, designer clothing, and sailboats don't pay for themselves.

[NNN0LHI]

79. Corporations really like that idea too

Believe that.

Don

[boppers]

80. So do people who like their family.

Win-Win.

[ieoeja]

90. During the Great Depression, labor unions recommended breaking up jobs.

They pushed for the 30 hour work week going from 3 eight hour shifts a day to 4 six hour shifts a day.

[B Calm]

83. I think time would be better spent not whining

but, working at ways to bring our own wages up!

[NNN0LHI]

86. Raising wages has to be done collectively or it turns into every man for himself

And that is where we are at right now. The wealthy has managed to convince some people they should be happy with what they are getting and be instantly jealous of anyone who makes more.

Above thread someone was concerned that a working person making too much money might be able to go on vacation, have a sailboat, have a new car or go skiing.

Like a working man doesn't deserve those kinds of things or something. Imagine that.

We have come a long way. Just the wrong direction.

Don

[WinkyDink]

85. Frankly, yes. With a Master's+18, I never saw $70K in 30 years of teaching.

And uh, yeah; there was "overtime."

[NNN0LHI]

88. We had a suburban public schoolteacher who made $191,214 in his last year before retiring

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110703/news/707039911/

Article updated: 7/3/2011 10:18 AM

Analysis looks at suburbs' top-paid teachers

Former Stevenson High School football coach Bill Mitz was the highest-paid suburban public schoolteacher in a Daily Herald analysis of 2009-10 salaries. With a payout for health care, he made $191,214 in his last year before retiring as a physical education teacher. He now coaches at Jacobs High School in Algonquin.

----------------------------------------------------

Do you think he was overpaid? I sure don't think he was. I think he deserved every damn penny of that.

Was there anyone who thought you were being overpaid? I don't think you were overpaid. You deserved everything you worked for. Just like the teacher above did. I don't think any teacher is being overpaid.

What is your opinion on this?

Don