This makes my heart swell with pride:
After shrinking during the 2008-9 recession, paychecks for top American executives are growing again — in many cases, significantly so.
Rarely has the view from the corner office seemed so at odds with the view from the street corner. At a time when millions of Americans are trying to hang on to homes and millions more are trying to hang on to jobs, the chief executives of major corporations like 3M, General Electric and Cisco Systems are making as much today as they were before the recession hit. Indeed, some are making even more.
The disparity is especially stark as companies are swimming in cash. In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678 trillion.
So far, this recovery has not trickled down. After two relatively lean years, C.E.O.’s in finance, technology, energy and beyond are pulling down multimillion-dollar paychecks. What many of these executives aren’t doing, however, is hiring. Unemployment, although down from its peak, stood at 8.8 percent in March. And few economists predict the jobless rate will drop substantially anytime soon.
For the average C.E.O., however, the good times have returned. The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies was $9.6 million last year. That was a 12 percent increase over 2009, according to a study conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, a compensation consulting firm based in Redwood City, Calif.
Many if not most of the corporations run by these executives are doing better than they were in the downturn. Many businesses were hit so hard by the recession that even small improvements in sales and profits look good by comparison. But C.E.O. pay is also on the rise again at companies like Capital One and Goldman Sachs, which survived the economic storm with the help of all those taxpayer-financed bailouts.
That older George Bush might have been on to something.
Of course, a couple more tax cuts and a little bit more deregulation, and some of that money might make it down to the lower castes classes.
piratedan
the zombifaction of voodoo economics? Because we all know who is getting stuck here, right?
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
But how right could he have been, he changed his mind. Good Republicans never change their minds, that’s how they know they’re right.
The Dangerman
I’d love to take a mulligan on bailing out some of those fuckers (or, at least, take a sand wedge to them).
/masters watching
NobodySpecial
You funny. Taking that show on the road?
Cermet
Fixed for correct Hindu usage as applied to the non-one percenter’s.
gbear
Billionaires: It’s the new white meat.
Ana Gama
Are angling to get linked to Krugman again?
Congrats on that, btw.
Slowbama
I am convinced more than ever that there will be — must be — massive civil unrest as a result of this wealth inequity. There seems no political solution. I didn’t think that until recently, but I’m a believer now. It’s almost a no-brainer at this point; they’re basically asking for it.
Punchy
The plural of anecdote is not data, but I know at my company, they cant help bragging about record profits. As they simultaneously explain that 2% raises will be the norm. If the bennys weren’t so titties, I’d feel obliged to leave. Just to be bent over at the next company, natch.
Sometimes I’m really glad I’m not 18 years old and facing a really fucked up future.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Slowbama: The civil unrest will be a long time in coming, judging from the sheeplike acceptance of Republican dogma by many in the media and outside it. A real shame.
BTW did anyone else get phonecalls from Planned Parenthood today? They started with “the Republicans are trying to defund us and we need your support now more than ever.” I wasn’t able to give them too much but I gave something. I’m wondering whether they got my name from a DNC or DSCC list.
Punchy
And I’ll add this — GO MINNESOTA WILD!! Need those lutefisk-eating bastards to win for my beloved Blackhawks to make the playoffs. This could be the longest 12 mins of my life. Play some damn DEFENSE!
WereBear
This is why, on those occasions when I have a choice, I buy local and I buy from small companies.
But gee, when it comes to high speed Internet, I have one freakin’ choice. Where is this Free Market thing I keep hearing about?
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@gbear: Win!
TimH
@John Cole
Apologies John Cole, you didn’t blow it. (I erred in my explanation in this and another comment thread). Rand Paul’s spokeswoman unwittingly lied on the phone about unanimous consent voting in the Senate. I was also mistaken and believed this too.
Unanimous consent votes are the most common votes cast in the U.S. Senate for decades and strictly observed. Most nominations, most bills are passed by unanimous consent without any debate. Every senator is told about these votes, including all their senior staffers and legislative directors who worked for the Senators. They are called directly by their party leaders. They can take as long as they want to make up their minds.
It would have taken Rand Paul only a second to say NO.
Tellingly Rand Paul refused to go on the record on this issue.
Turns out Rand Paul isn’t explaining himself correctly and there was a really good case to be made about his flip-flop on Libya.
Oops.
Here is Lawrence O’Donnell with a really clarifying segment that aired a few days later after the first Rand Paul rant on Libya. It goes on for around 11 minutes:
http://thelastword.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/01/6393150-rand-pauls-lies-on-tape
Anyway i think this is a really important update. Hope you do a post on it with the video.
(this comment was reposted from an earlier thread, in case you didn’t see it. i really think it’s worth mentioning)
Bob Loblaw
@Punchy:
These sentences make sense individually, but not in that order they don’t.
lamh34
OT, But this currently a blog post over at AmericaBlog.com. “The one who primaries Obama will be the next Democratic president”
Ok, I know people in the liberal blogopshere are not happy with the Dems and Obama right now, but do people actually believe SHIT like this? To answer my own question, I guess it is true, since so many of the Americablog comenters are nodding their heads along…
I mean Wow!
Face
@Bob Loblaw: Pretty sure he/she means that all companies are cheap pieces of shit, except maybe for decent benefits. Too bad low co-pays dont pay the mortgage.
Suck It Up!
@lamh34:
sigh….fucking idiots.
gbear
@lamh34: I stopped at AmericaBl..
They get into a level of panty twisting that would make Chubby Checkers drop dead from exhaustion.
Mike in NC
Uh, no.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@lamh34: Never read Americablog. Probably never will. I bet left-leaning blog posters/commenters across the board make about 2% of the voting population. I wouldn’t get too worked up about it.
I’m more concerned hearing colleagues at work accept the right’s framing of issues (especially the sudden fixation on the deficit in the middle of a recession we haven’t fully recovered from), aided and abetted by the mainstream media. When people start using the analogy of their home budgets and spending, we’re in deep trouble because it’s harder to explain why the US budget doesn’t and shouldn’t work exactly the same way as my colleagues’ monthly budgets.
No one seems to have heard of Hoover. Simple (even if stupid) appears to win.
Punchy
And there it is! Blackhawks just backdoored themselves into the playoffs, likely to get smoked by the ‘Nucks. Gotta hope Sedin and Company forget how to skate while Toews goes nuts.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
.
.
Ix-fayed.
.
.
PurpleGirl
The Times also had an article today about the Gannett media group which reported that while the one of the newspaper groups was ordering weeklong unpaid furloughs for workers the executives of Gannett doubled their compensation.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Punchy: My Wings get to play Phoenix. Unfortunately, we play more games at home than on the road in that matchup. Can they volunteer to play their home games in Phoenix? They need the money.
Ash Can
@Punchy: Wowza! I too expect the Hawks to get smoked, but it really would have been a nasty letdown if they had missed the postseason entirely. This at least is a respectable followup to last year.
TimH
stop using the word “class”. you were wrong to cross out “caste”
gbear
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): AmericaBlog’s posts on music are worse than their posts on politics. They’re like villagers for has-been rock stars.
OzoneR
@lamh34: They don’t matter
Bruce S
This is heartening. If the economy isn’t doing great for the Galtian Overlords, what the hell is it good for?
Punchy
@Ash Can: Losing Bfugglin’, Neimi, etc…. gotta agree that just getting to the playoffs with that type of loss is amazing.
Ash Can
@Punchy: Turco and Crawford were the Huet and Niemi, respectively, of this season, and they did a bang-up job. However, last year the Hawks’ fore/back checking and passing were a nightmare on wheels for the rest of the league, and it was losing so much of these aspects of their game that really hurt the Hawks.
tkogrumpy
@The Dangerman: May I lend you my chainsaw?
tkogrumpy
The company I retired from, which built multi-million dollar summer homes for our Galtian overlords went from 50 employees in 2007 to less than a dozen last year but is now booking several new houses again. There is no question in my mind the top .01% has bounced right back.
alwhite
BTW the BBC link is built on an untrue premise. The Reagan people never ever believed that what they were doing would stimulate job growth or entrepreneurship.
.
David Stockman was St. Ronnies budget director until he quite in disgust. He wrote a book about his experience. He explains that the people who came in with Reagan never wanted to create jobs or increase new businesses. Their entire goal was to destroy the Federal government. That is not my opinion this is what Stockman himself said was the goal. They wanted to bankrupt the Federal government so that it could not function any longer.
.
They are succeeding.
hildebrand
@lamh34: The only actual suggestions (not many to be had, mind you, mostly serious kvetching about the need to DO SOMETHING) in the comments (it seems all too telling that the blogger neglected to actually offer any) – Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
alwhite
@lamh34:
I think a lot of liberals are disgusted, not just with Obama but with the Dems in general. I think they desperately want to send a message but have very few options. Take the Health insurance bill that got passed; as many liberals hated it for being too weak as teabaggers who hated it for being at all. Yet they were ignored and baggers were elevated.
A lot of what you read on liberal sites is that anger and frustration. But 90% of them will suck it up and vote Obama because they have no choice. The 10% that won’t were the Naderites who thought DumbbellUs election would turn the tide and elect real libs forever. It didn’t and the reality-based ones know that.
cat48
sukabi
@gbear: fire up the barbie.
sukabi
wow, interesting moderation filters…
@gbear: f!re up the barb!e.
sukabi
@lamh34: over the last year – 18 months the commentariate have pretty much gone full on Anti Obama.. and now it looks like they’ve brought on a couple of FPers that are working primarily in that direction as well…
I’ll also note that their traffic has dropped way off (at least their commenters aren’t as plenty) and that drop off was before they started funneling off part of their traffic to their gay only issues forum…
don’t know who exactly they think is a “contender” for the D’s… I sure as hell haven’t seen any that could rise to the challenge and stand a chance in hell of getting anywhere.
ABL, I think I ran into the “bug” that’s causing strikeouts in your posts… a single hyphen without a space before and after a line of text will do it…
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Punchy:
You know, a real general manager knows how to build a team that can stay together for more than one year. I’ve heard tell that there is a team that is making the playoffs for the 20th consecutive season while over that span only twice drafting earlier than 20th.
hildebrand
It seems to me that what the hard-core left doesn’t quite understand is that what leads people to a progressive mindset also makes them rather willing to compromise or at least try to find some kind of actual solution to people’s problems, even if the solutions aren’t perfect.
The other bit is that once you cross over to actually wanting to help other folks, this displays a rather disconcerting habit of being nice, and therefore not particularly confrontational, because you know that confrontational pricks don’t get much done.
Thus, liberals tend to be a bit soft-hearted and willing to do the best they can, even if that means sacrificing a bit now if it means that at least the direction we are traveling in is at least the correct direction. Sloppy, frustratingly slow, at times head-thunkingly so? Yep. I guess I would rather that than to be so absolutely certain of everything that I have stopped thinking, or caring about folks around me. Sigh.
OzoneR
@hildebrand:
Democrats aren’t ruthless, if they were, they’d be Republicans
Odie Hugh Manatee
That giant sucking sound you hear is the cash from our economy disappearing into the mindless, gaping maws of the financial, health and business sectors. That fluffing sound you hear are the stacks of cash the rich and powerful are fanning as they count their cut of it.
That rattle sound? Ignore that, it’s just the death-rattle in the chest of our economy. It’ll be over soon enough.