Work. It's a scary word.

[walldude]

The CEO's fly in on their private jets, complete with full bar and probably a lobster lunch. They beg for money for a couple hours then fly back home, the maid has a steak dinner waiting. They kiss their kid and hand him back to the nanny. Ask the maid to fix them a drink, kick back and flip on Fox news and complain about what a rough day they had.

In the meantime the line worker got up at 6 am. Spent his/her day working the assembly line, probably a ham sandwich for lunch and back to the line for the rest of the day. Go home help their spouse, who also just got home from a long days work, get dinner on the table and make sure the kids are doing their homework. Make sure the house is clean, the laundry is done and then maybe relax for an hour before bed to get up and do it all over again.


So here is our problem. We have two factions of people here, people who work hard for a living and people who make a living off of the backs of others. All of them want to be bailed out. We would like to bail out the workers. Well, that's what we should do. Give the big 3 over to the employees. Fire every single senior management person. From presidents to vice presidents to CEO's to top managers. Any motherfucker who has no idea what it's like to work for a living can hit the fucking pavement. Then you take actual workers, and put them in charge of the place. Someone that actually has a stake in the success or failure of the company.

Since I don't get anywhere near the stock market, or the economy and I don't really understand "publicly traded companies" this may not be a workable idea, but I can tell you this, I may not understand those things but I do understand human nature and you will never, no matter how much money you "loan" them or use to bail them out, get the CEO's to give a flying fuck about the company, it's products or it's employees. NEVER. Until they are removed from the equation the big "3" will continue to decline. Same thing with Wall Street, which is why I will never invest my money, or approve of bailing out people who have no idea what it takes to survive in the real world. Call me crazy. Or Un-American as I have been called today. But to ask people with no work ethic to "work together to solve problems" is um... fucking stupid.

[sarcasmo]

1. Excellent post. I call it Class Warfare my friend. The Top ten percent Vs everyone else.

The real question, are that many Ceo's really needed for one corporation, three jets and three CEO's. I want the company to survive and get a loan, my biggest issue is that Wall st didn't have to be this much.

[Greyhound]

4. Hear, Hear, except it's top 1% - 2%. n/t

[sarcasmo]

6. What is the magic number for that 1-2 percent? Someone who makes a Million a year?

or someone who makes 500,000 a year?

[hfojvt]

11. depends on if you go by income or wealth

by income in 2005, the top .6% made over $500,000, another 2% made between $200,000 and $500,000.

But that is from tax filings, some of which are joint filings. A person could be over $200,000 if they made $110,000 their spouse made $60,000 and they made $35,000 from investments.

[Greyhound]

14. What hfojvt said, and that does point out one of the great diversions.

I am guilty of it too, sorry.

It is a class war, just as it has always been down through the ages, and we just don't have the language to clearly define the division.

Much of the discussion centers around income, but many, if not most, of the parasite class has no income in the traditional sense, they have unimaginable assets but do not "earn" any money. The money that comes in to pay the bills (when they bother to pay at all, but that's a different story) comes from dividends, interest, and other "unearned" income, which is a separate category.

The founders, if I understand correctly, defined it terms of liberty. If you have to go to work in order to live, you are not free and therefore not at liberty. You accept the yoke of servitude in exchange for your daily bread, whereas the parasite class have no such necessity, and this is why they are in such fear of all things cooperative.

We have and produce enough for all to live freely, pursuing that which we desire or feel called to, but that does not work for them, they require the toil of many to support their liberty without effort on their part and a system of competition is the best solution for them, but does not serve us at all.

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. Cap their pay, the CEOs' pay that is. Just like in Japan. Simply solution to greedy CEOs, imho.

[walldude]

10. Or base it on the success of the company and it's employees.

If I ran a business my employees would come first. (luckily I'm self employed so I come first!)

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. One or the other. Something needs to be done and on that, I think we all agree.

This run away CEO compensation is obscene!

[mdmc]

21. hear hear!

[codjh9]

2. I wish I hadn't 'gotten anywhere near the stock market'. ..... I feel like roadkill.

[sarcasmo]

3. I shut the TEEVEE off today, yesterday watching it drop 5% and knowing what my Dad lost made me ill.

[Idealism]

5. Welcome to your introduction to Reaganomics

Since the late 1970s, real wages in this country has been stagnant, barely adjusted to inflation, and in the past decade has not adjusted for it at all. In the same time CEO compensation was about 40x what a typical worker for their company made in the 70s and today i've heard everywhere from 1000x to 2200x times the average worker pay. The differance in these times has been CEOs pay has been more linked to stock options, and as a result, direct compensation relies in capital gains from shares. This led executives to do everything in their power to make sure the stock price went up in the short-term to boost their personal wealth. The easiest way for this to happen is to acquire competition and gain market share, so thats partly why you see the huge jump in CEO to worker compensation. You hear a lot about 'too big to fail' and thats what it is. Why it was allowed to happen in the first place is beyond me, but I guess our regulators didn't think anti-trust laws needed to be enforced. As Paul Krugman has said, "too big to fail means too big."

[alarimer]

7. Absolutely.

Any bailout must have conditions attached to it. I am not opposed to the bailout per se; I just think they need to 1) raise CAFE standards and commit money to green technology vehicles (and this would also include on public transportation efforts, much of which was destroyed by the auto companies and oil companies); and 2) protect the workers, retirees and unions.

Additionally I wonder why the oil companies don't just bail out the auto companies. It seems like most oil company profits come from our car culture to begin with so it would seem that Exxon, et. al. have a stake in seeing those companies continue.

And reduce CEO and executive compensation to no more than 100X the workers' average pay. If the average in $40K, then the CEOs are limited to $400k salary. No bonuses, no perks like private jets or country club membership. I think that is a reasonable sum.

[walldude]

9. Ashton Kutcher mentioned the Oil Companies on Bill Mahr

last week. I though it was a great idea. They have been posting record profits every quarter for the last couple years. Let them invest. Once again though that decision would have to be made by CEO's and people with no grip on reality and with no agenda except for getting personally rich. And with them in the picture it won't happen.

[specimenfred1984]

13. Abraham Lincoln recognized it well, 148 years ago

Lincoln: We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.

[Mike 03]

15. Beautiful, honest, gut-wrenching post.

You really put your finger on it. That imperial buffer between our desire to help those who deserve to be helped are the corporate leadership who will never, ever have to experience need, hunger, lack of sleep, any of those things.

It's a problem I haven't a clue how to solve. But maybe this financial catastrophe will help us to sort things out.

Kick and Rec.

[rvablue]

16. Your first paragraph says it all and reminds me of something

I noticed when watching the hearing yesterday with the CEOs.

When one representative had the nerve to ask them if they were willing to sell their jets on the spot and fly first class commercial home, the look of complete arrogance on their silent, smirking faces made me want to stick my fist through the screen.

No matter what happens, bail out or no bail out, these scumbags won't feel anymore than a pinch. At worst, maybe they'll lose one of their trophy wifes to a rich Chinese entrepenuer that comes over and buys the company.

And you are definitely not unAmerican for putting up this thread.
Your comments only show that you really care about the bread and butter workers that make this country and our economy hum.
Those excuses for human beings who testified before Congress yesterday don't deserve to lick the bottom of any of our boots after how they've most likely purposefully sunk one of our most important, maybe only remaining, industry.

[JuniperLea]

17. That's what I'm saying! Good to see you onboard...

This would work. When people are given ownership, even if only symbolically, that entrepreneurial spirit works wonders at getting things done correctly. When you have someone at the top, like you've described (and trust me, I've known far too many of these assholes in my day) you get decisions based on greed.

The American auto industry as we know it does not work. It is going to fail, even with a "loan" because they have no plan to do anything differently and they are already blaming others. This tells me they are covering their own smarmy asses and they don't give a tinker's damn about the workers.

This could work. I'm convinced. The powers that be will fight it because it cuts them out. Boo fucking hoo.

But what really chaps my hide are all the apologists here on DU! It's just ignorance.

[JuniperLea]

18. And here is proof these jerks are up to no good with the money they want from us!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4502735&mesg_id=4502735

[walldude]

19. Unbelievable.

Until we get rid of these guys we're going to keep going round and round.

[robinlynne]

20. oh YES! beautiful post!