So, about that “non-existent” gender pay gap because women refuse to get competitive degrees in high-paying fields…
If only more women had MBAs and had years of relevant work experience rather than getting degrees like MBAs and having years of relevant work experience, I’m sure they would make just as much money as men, right guys?
Open thread.
Baud
Men can pee upright, which reduces the cost of men’s bathrooms vis-a-vis womens’, which explains the pay differential.
Naturally.
debbie
@Baud:
But they use twice the paper towels, so it’s a wash.
BGinCHI
Yeah but women are so emotional.
Baud
@debbie:
I see what you did there.
MomSense
Don’t ya know we are just supposed to lean in, recognize our worth, and somehow communicate this in a way that isn’t “brusque”, “bitchy”, “abrasive”, “difficult”…
BGinCHI
I’m guessing the powerful dudes who run the business world are not present when their wives go through labor and have a child.
That experience, which is masterfully run (in my one-child experience) by women, during which a woman endures the greatest pain and suffers through agonies I don’t ever want to see again, demonstrates that the gender with the loudest mouth is hiding the thinnest skin.
I would like to see the pay of women who do jobs like that (and many, if not most other healthcare jobs that are the most labor-intensive (no pun intended)) soar above men with MBAs and women with MBAs.
When we start valuing work we will make the most progress.
debbie
@MomSense:
It is unbelievable how some women are so willing to undercut other women. Very dispiriting.
MomSense
@BGinCHI:
Please add teachers to the list of jobs that should be paid more than the MBA jobs especially since they have to endure the MBAs they bring in to “consult” in our schools. These consultants are some of the most inept, jargon parrots in the world.
MomSense
@debbie:
It’s awful.
BGinCHI
@MomSense: That was implicit in my comment, but yes, of course. But again, I’d reward teaching as the most important work that we can compensate. If we do that, the gender issue can go away. I’m not being naive. I just think that we pay for work in all the wrong ways in this country, so fixing a gender inequality doesn’t go far enough.
BGinCHI
@debbie: Just say it: Fiorina!
lonesomerobot
But just a couple of weeks ago I was listening to some nice lady from American Enterprise Institute (on the To The Point radio show) explain how everything we know about the wage gap is all wrong, and in reality it’s “only a few cents.”
I really appreciate the AEI getting a woman to explain that to me. Having a woman say it means it must be true. She must be getting paid the same as her male co-workers.
Punchy
Doesn’t a woman’s MBA stand for Master of Baking Arts?
Litlebritdifrnt
@MomSense: My husband recently had to implement changes in the classroom as a result of some “study” undertaken by the MBAs of this world. It totally fucked everything up. People who have never taught for a living should have no business suggesting changes to teaching.
ThresherK
@Baud: Except that presumption ignores the natural distribution of men in men’s rooms:
Male—(unused urinal)—Male—(unused urinal)—Male
MomSense
@BGinCHI:
I completely agree. Part of the problem is the breakdown in the social construct that says that we can come together to do important things and the recognition that it takes everyone to make a project successful. Now we are just looking to minimize labor costs as if labor is just another a widget to buy as cheap as possible and not human beings.
benw
@lonesomerobot: you got mansplained by a women. We really are in the future!
MomSense
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I just read an article about a struggling high school in my state. Based on consultant recommendations, they cut music, PE, and art so they could do more test prep. Scores went down. They are trying to reconstitute their music, PE, and art programs now.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Pee Cee
Dividing MBA salaries by four and distributing the money to, well any actually useful profession, would be a good starting point to fixing America.
rikyrah
those pesky statistics….LOL
tell it, Zandar.
Poopyman
@MomSense:
I’m totally stealing this, because I can use it multiple times a day to good effect.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Women take more time in the bathroom, Time is Money.
Poopyman
@MomSense: It’s only funny because it’s true.
SFAW
@debbie:
You seem to be assuming men wash their hands after. As the old joke goes: “At Stanford, we learned not to piss on our hands.”
@MomSense:
You do realize that pointing that out makes YOU the real bitchy and abrasive one, don’t you?
@BGinCHI:
Commie. Will no one think of those poor private equity wage slaves? Being able to destroy a company while enriching yourself is tough work, but someone has to do it.
lonesomerobot
@MomSense: Don’t forget bossy. I’m told that’s how some women are, and it sure does make me mad. I mean seriously, women, you stop being so bossy! Right now!
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: That’s what Mika tells me, she must be right since she’s on my TV.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
MBA, the measure of all things. While it’s sad to see women get paid less to drink coffee and talk about how hard they work than man, what about down in little people land?
bemused
@lonesomerobot:
Did To The Point host ask her if she gets paid the same as males in AEI?
rikyrah
This continues to tickle me.
………………..
Donald Trump Leads in Expectations, Shows Strength on Attributes (POLL)
By JULIE PHELAN Oct 21, 2015, 7:00 AM ET
Donald Trump leads the Republican presidential field in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, not only in vote preferences but in expectations as well -– a remarkable feat for the non-politician who’s surprised the GOP establishment with his staying power as well as his support.
Trump has leveled off with backing from 32 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote, easily enough to retain his frontrunner status. Fellow outsider Ben Carson follows with 22 percent, also flat this month after sharp summertime gains.
Notably, even more leaned Republicans — 42 percent — say they expect Trump to win the GOP nomination for president. And given a list of six potential nominees, 43 percent pick Trump as having the best chance to win the general election just more than a year from now.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-leads-expectations-shows-strength-attributes-poll/story?id=34599211
Face
@BillinGlendaleCA: Also, their makeup runs when they cry, which adds to carpet cleaning costs.
rikyrah
VANITY FAIRVerified account
@VanityFair
How Lupita Nyong’o is helping bring a diverse cast and a female playwright to Broadway http://vntyfr.com/cxtN8gf
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
I think just about everything should pay better than MBA-type stuff. As far as I can tell, MBAs make a net negative contribution to our society, so they should be compensated appropriately.
BGinCHI
@Roger Moore: There is a statistic out there that the whole of the financial sector is a net drag on the economy. Kills more jobs than it creates, etc.
lonesomerobot
@bemused: Unfortunately not, although that was one of my first thoughts as well. I would be willing to bet the AEI doesn’t want her to know.
However, it was pointed out on the show that it’s illegal to bar employees from discussing salaries with your co-workers, so if you work somewhere that has actually told you that you can’t do that (or better, has even written it down in an employee handbook), you can certainly get your employer in a whole lot of trouble with the federal government.
debbie
@SFAW:
More like a fervent hope.
Poopyman
@Roger Moore: You know who else was an MBA? Our first MBA Preznit, that’s who.
I’m sure if MBAs were around in the 16th Century, Shakespeare’s Henry V would have called them out instead of lawyers.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: “Trump has leveled off with backing from 32 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote”
Wow. He’s actually gaining support as time goes on. It’s amazing that a blowhard can be doing so well for a major political party.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Obviously you don’t know some of the women I know.
SFAW
@debbie:
Let me mansplain it to you, little lady …
BGinCHI
@Poopyman: One of Jack Cade’s men in 2 Henry VI.
Henry V made keen use of lawyers and would not have wanted to be without them. The Salic Law speech in Act 1 is one of the great legalese scam speeches ever. Uttered by an Archbishop, but the content is all legal history.
bystander
“Jargon parrot” is my new favorite expression. Worthy of a genuine thought leader, MomSense.
Kristin Welker on MSNBC just said that Biden’s changing his story about what he advised the POTUS about killing OBL is an effort to bolster his foreign relations bond fides in prep for a run. She said this while pedaling the honing stone to sharpen nails for future use by her and her colleagues.
MomSense
@Poopyman:
I love that guy’s pose. Why he could be standing in front of a power point–reading the all the words on the slide, even the bullet points.
SFAW
@Poopyman:
I understand the point you’re trying to make, but, if I understand that particular line correctly, I think it may be a misinterpretation of what Shakespeare meant.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Poopyman:
OzarkHillbilly
@Poopyman: “First thing we do, let’s kill all the MBAs”. Thanx, my new bumper sticker.
negative 1
I realize I will probably be attacked for saying this but maybe MBA isn’t the degree you want to go with to prove this point. There are plenty of diploma mills, for-profit colleges, second-tier night schools etc. that have MBA programs. As a scam it’s almost as bad as law school anymore. The reason that this matters is that averaging, say, Wharton with DeVry will be misleading, and the pay gap may well have begun with the college admission process rather than the employment. If you want to prove the pay gap in business, why not just take the salaries of those in business? Having a roundabout proxy like the one given just smacks of data manipulation in service of making a point.
bemused
@lonesomerobot:
It would seem to have been a obvious question to ask! Why am I not surprised it wasn’t.
joes527
@Pee Cee: This.
I’ve worked in private industry my whole career, and MBA is a flag* flown by those who can’t actually do anything useful.
* I’m not saying that everyone with an MBA is a useless twit, just that in my experience, everyone who lets other people know that they have an MBA is a useless twit.
debbie
@Poopyman:
What better example that an MBA is worthless than this fact?
SFAW
@debbie:
Oh, come on! Your Bush Derangement Syndrome has overtaken your good sense. It takes a highly-proficient businessman to fail at running an oil company AND a baseball team. I challenge you to do worse!
beltane
MBAs are a burden on society. They should be paid nothing and retrained in useful professions.
rikyrah
October 20, 2015
The Great Unraveling: The GOP examines itself in free fall
Joe Biden got some excellent news yesterday. For the first time in more than two years of ABC/WaPo polling, President Obama topped the 50 percent approval mark in job performance. “That compares with 71 percent disapproval of the Republicans in Congress,” reports ABC News, “with six in 10 calling their struggle to select a new House speaker a sign of dysfunction within the GOP caucus.”
I don’t know which is more uplifting: that Obama is back in the black or Republicans are drenched in red. On the surer side of knowability, though, Obama will still be his solid self in 2016 — which is particularly good news for a legacy presidential candidate — while congressional Republicans will have further ulcerated into bleeding chaos. By winter, they will have hauled us to the edge of national catastrophe several times. Thus the happiest days will be here again, for the GOP’s current 24 percent approval rating will, by then, be cause for internal nostalgia.
The electorate is beginning to figure this out, and conservatives are freaking out. Their party is an incurable blight, a wasteland of fringy frivolity and crackpot extremism. The Republican House is a thunderdome of bloody imbecility, the Republican Senate is a hothouse of pornographic presidential hopefulness, and the party’s leading contenders for the republic’s highest office are two very implausible wombats.
The spawn of strategic Bill Buckley’s baby, National Review Online, wailed yesterday that “members of the Republican establishment are starting to give voice to an increasingly common belief that Donald Trump, once dismissed as joke, a carnival barker, and a circus freak, might very well win the nomination.” If so, the carnival-barking Trump will be embraced by much of the establishment, which the electorate will then dismiss as the real joke.
– See more at: http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2015/10/the-great-unraveling-the-gop-examines-itself-in-free-fall-.html#sthash.ssBlOaek.dpuf
Poopyman
@OzarkHillbilly: Could maybe might actually make it into Baud’s campaign platform.
@BGinCHI: Ehhh, V, VI. Whatever. Serves me right for relying on memory from HS English 40+ years ago. I blame my teachers.
Wrong thread for that?
BGinCHI
@beltane: It’s an open secret at every university that the business school majors are the dumbest.
rikyrah
October 19, 2015
To Democrats, I would advise patience
A reader points to Matthew Yglesias’s handwringing — which, while overwrought in my opinion, should not be underestimated, either. You never know. At any rate, a full read of his Vox piece is advisable; or if you haven’t the time, Yglesias’s concluding paragraph summarizes his worry:
The much more significant question facing the [Democratic] party isn’t about the White House — it’s about all the other offices in the land. The problem is that control of the presidency seems to have blinded progressive activists to the possibility of even having an argument about what to do about all of them. That will change if and when the GOP seizes the White House, too, and Democrats bottom out. But the truly striking thing is how close to bottom the party is already and how blind it seems to be to that fact.
It could be that I’m one of the blind. It could also be that there’s little reason for Yglesias’s worry, even though I’m an inveterate worrier. The chief reason comes from none other than RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, who, in yet another instance of capricious Republican truth-telling, recently said “I do think we’re cooked as a party for quite a while … if we don’t win in 2016. I do think it’s going to be hard to dig out of something like that.”
Rot, stench, the fish’s head and all that. The GOP is decaying from the top down. Just look at its “top” spokesmen — Donald Trump and Ben Carson, an utterly unhinged demagogue and an inexplicable cipher. On the party’s less popular establishment side there’s Jeb Bush, inept brother of the country’s most inept president ever. Such is the deep bench that might “seize the White House”?
– See more at: http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2015/10/to-democrats-i-would-advise-patience.html#sthash.7qY0lEyy.dpuf
BGinCHI
@Poopyman: Trust me, you did not read 2 Henry VI in HS.
bemused
I’ll never understand why a Republican voter, male or female, would not want the female spouse or partner to be paid the same as a man for equal work and have more money coming into the family coffers.
WereBear
If performance has metrics which can be handled independently of knowing someone’s sex, such as when people auditioning for orchestras did so from behind a screen, so they could only be heard, not seen; women start popping up all over the place!
Men who want the bar lowered; who want to compete with only fellow dunderheads; that’s what keeps old boys clubs, old boys clubs.
beltane
@BGinCHI: My husband majored in business because it was the easiest major by far, a properly trained monkey could fulfill the requirements.
SFAW
@bemused:
Bruised egos, among other things.
Face
Perhaps having women audition from behind a shower curtain?
bystander
@bemused:
Stupidity? Blind obeisance to sexism as a “conservative” value? Just guessing.
Amir Khalid
@bemused:
If it helps you understand, remember that Democrats want gender parity in pay. And what Democrats want …
OzarkHillbilly
@bemused: Because “family values” that’s why. If the woman makes as much or more than the man she might get the idea that she should have equal say in family decisions.
bemused
@SFAW:
Republicans egos get bruised over everything, especially white males. They value protecting their egos above all, even if it costs them financially.
GregB
@bemused:
That is a slap in the pasty white face!
rikyrah
Chicago Folks,
the Black Ensemble Theatre is doing The Black/White Love Play – a story about the Roger Ebert and his wife, Chaz.
Heard an interview with Chaz last night. I’ve never seen an actual play there, so I assume there’s a lot of music involved with it, because that’s what Jackie Taylor does.
http://www.blackensembletheater.org/
bemused
@GregB:
They don’t get slapped in their pasty white faces nearly enough!
@OzarkHillbilly:
No doubt true. Keep them barefoot, pg and silent.
WereBear
@rikyrah: That sounds like a lovely idea.
debbie
@BGinCHI:
One of my earliest jobs was as an office assistant in Boston University’s General BIology Department. They had separate classes for each college (business, education, pre-med, etc.). I had to type and mimeo the exams, and the difference in the questions on the same material was unbelievable. The tests for business majors were easier than for the jocks.
As if that wasn’t enough, a business major walked up to my desk one day and promised me students in his section would each pay $50 for a copy of the test beforehand. With 300 kids in the section, this worked out to about $15,000. At that time, my weekly take-home was $57.55, so this was a lot of money.
I declined almost immediately, but I’m always looking for his name when CEOs go rogue. I’ve no doubt he has been successful, but I know he’s lied and cheated through his ass to get there.
beltane
Most Republican women feel that though they themselves are underpaid, all other women, especially their co-workers, are lazy whiners who don’t deserve to be paid as much as they are. That’s how the Republican party gets away with this.
Peale
@rikyrah: So you’d prefer rotting from the bottom up? Or would you prefer that every election we have to choose between 75 year old candidates, then 80 year old candidates, then 90?
cmorenc
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Those MBAs need to be commissioned to conduct a study of the extent to which classroom education improves when MBAs are told to go fuck themselves.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: That’s indeed part of it.
But it’s privilege that they’re unwilling to admit is unearned that drives the whole kit and kaboodle. It is the basis of all “conservatism”. You can see it in the writings of Burke, for example. David Koch told a reporter once that his main problem with Obama is that Obama is an “egalitarian”. Oh, you mean he’s a threat of an actual meritocracy instead of whose uterus did you fall out of as the basis for social status? Ayup. Which means that he’s a threat to inherited social status, which would mean the Koch Brothers would have to actually prove their worth without a multimillion dollar inheritance to pad their way. Much like Donald Trump.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I am always at pains to say that I have a Master’s of Accountancy, and, no, it’s not an MBA. My MAcc classes were all, with just one exception, fantastic and educating. The MBA classes I had to take as electives to fill out my coursework were uniformly awful. Several of the professors complained in private about how awful the classes are and that they wished they could make them more rigorous. But since the school mandates that the median grade in each MBA class should be an A-, and cannot fall below a B+, they don’t have that option.
And this is at a pretty good business school (University of Minnesota), though not a top 20 program.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: See one each Carly Fiorina.
Paul in KY
@lonesomerobot: Would be funny if they showed her men at her propaganda outfit who were paid more. Would be interesting to see how ‘professional’ she was then.
Elizabelle
Yeah.
And now Paul Ryan is insinuating himself into the position of “dedicated parent; my kids are so important.”
CNN was discussing him and Marissa Myer — can you say “special snowflakes” for both? Click, went the remote.
CNN did mention Ryan does not even work a 5-day week. A few differences from the usual American (woman!) in those paragons of family/work life balance.
Amir Khalid
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
What do they teach in MBA school anyway?
BGinCHI
@debbie: And that man was Mitt Romney.
Just a suggestion. WAY punchier ending.
BGinCHI
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Accounting is the only defensible major in the biz school racket. At least until the software eliminates it.
NotMax
OT: Grrr.
Third time in a row unable to make a connection with the monthly call to a toll-free number to order my cigars and have to go through a whole rigmarole with the phone company office to get connected to an operator, who places the call for me, which goes right through. Dialing zero doesn’t do squat, as after 25 rings and no pick-up (twice!), gave up.
Didn’t help either when the person I finally got through to at the phone company trouble line said, “Yes, I remember talking to you about this same problem several times previously.”
/venting
Amir Khalid
In this unflattering photo, Jeb’s left eye seems to be turned slightly inward. I hadn’t noticed it before.
ruemara
Well, there goes my plan to get an MBA if things keep going downhill.
Happy Back To The Future Day! I didn’t even notice it was my b’day when I first watched the movie.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: If you inherit a huge amount of money, ‘egalitarianism’ isn’t going to fix that.
This is more (IMO) about college admissions & back-slapping & legacies to get initial jobs, etc.
PaulW
my take on Yglesias’ warnings to Democrats failing to support their state-level politics:
http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/10/getting-vote-out-everywhere-matters.html
Poopyman
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: @Paul in KY: Legacies?
Old, old news, but sometimes I just need a reminder lest I start to soften up on him a bit.
Steve in the ATL
Shakespeare said that when we want go destabilize a country, first we kill all the lawyers. It was actually a statement of how important we are to society. At least that’s my interpretation.
Is goblue72 around? I’m in Ann Arbor today. Lovely place, though oddly sedated this week. And less lovely when one is spending the day in a plaintiff’s lawyer’s conference room.
Kerry Reid
Look, if we just address CLASS issues, racial and gender discrimination will disappear!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Biden to run as an Independent. ;-) Or maybe he’s not running at all.
Yeah, he just announced he’s not running at all.
Finally.
Cheers,
Scott.
NorthLeft12
I think you mean; “If only more women pulled a Yentl or reverse Tootsie, I’m sure they would make just as much as men.”
And I realize I am dating myself with those two movie references.
Paul in KY
@Steve in the ATL: I think in relation to Jack Cade’s rebellion, it was the lawyers doing the bidding of Henry VI & scrounging up money in any way possible.
dickbutt
How much of that is accounted for by dropping out of the workforce to have children? Most or all of it, is my guess.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Yeh, I’ve noticed that his face isn’t symetrical looking. Very off-putting, and often sub-consciously so. Perhaps explains why he isn’t doing better in the polls, people just “know” he isn’t right somehow, even if they can’t explain it.
different-church-lady
Male or female, every dollar an MBA earns is a dollar they’re getting overpaid.
Satby
@ruemara: Happy Birthday ruemara!