Do U.S. workers make too much money?

Lou Dobbs, at points has been such a Bush Apologist I lost all respect for him, has hit a milestone of journalistic integrity not at all common in America these days. View his regular " Exporting America" segment.

I've uttered this exact quote myself:
"Now, I understand the profit motive, as a matter of fact, no one is more pro business, pro American free enterprise than I am, but I'm also pro American worker." -- Lou Dobbs

Some of the companies active in Exporting American jobs:
3Com, 3M, Adobe Systems, AMD, Aetna, A.G. Edwards, Alamo Rent A Car, Albertson's, Allstate, Amazon.com, American Standard, AOL, AT&T, AT&T Wireless, Avery Dennison

Bank of America, Bank of New York, Bank One, Bear Stearns, Bechtel, BellSouth, Best Buy, Black & Decker, Boeing, Bumble Bee

Capital One, Carrier, Charles Schwab, ChevronTexaco, Circuit City, Inc., Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Comcast Holdings, Computer Associates, Continental Airlines, Cooper Tire & Rubber, Cooper Tools, CSX, Cummins

Dell Computer, Delta Air Lines, Direct TV, Discover, Dow Chemical, DuPont

Earthlink, Eastman Kodak, Eaton Corporation, EDS, Eli Lilly, Emerson Electric, Equifax, Ernst & Young, Expedia, ExxonMobil

Fedders Corporation, Fidelity Investments, First American Title Insurance, First Data, Fluor, Ford Motor, Franklin Mint

Gateway, GE Capital, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Goodrich, Google, Guardian Life Insurance

The Hartford Financial Services Group, Hewlett-Packard, Humana

IBM, IndyMac Bancorp, Intel, International Paper, Intuit, ITT Educational Services

Jacuzzi, JDS Uniphase, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, Juniper Networks

Kaiser Permanente, Kwikset

Lehman Brothers, Levi Strauss, Lockheed Martin, Lowe's, Lucent

Marshall Fields, Mattel, Maytag, Medtronic, Mellon Bank, Merrill Corporation, Merrill Lynch, MetLife, Microsoft, Monsanto, Morgan Stanley, Motorola

National Semiconductor, NCR Corporation, NETGEAR, Network Associates, Newell Rubbermaid, New York Life Insurance Co., Northwest Airlines

Office Depot, Oracle, OshKosh B'Gosh, Otis Elevator Co., Owens Corning

Perot Systems, Pfizer, Pitney Bowes, Pratt & Whitney, Procter & Gamble, Prudential Insurance

Qwest Comm.

Radio Shack, Raytheon Aircraft, RR Donnelley & Sons, Russell Corporation

Sikorsky, Sprint, Sprint PCS, Starkist Seafood, State Farm Insurance, Supra Telecom, SurePrep, The Sutherland Group, Sykes Enterprises, Synygy

Target, Tecumseh, Telcordia, TeleTech, Tellabs, Texas Instrumentsm, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, Time Warner, Toys "R" Us, Tyco Electronics, Tyco International

Union Pacific Railroad, Unisys, United Tech.

Veritas, Verizon, VF Corporation

Wachovia Bank, Washington Group Intl., Washington Mutual, WellChoice, Werner Co., West Corporation, Weyerhaeuser, Whirlpool, Wolverine World Wide, Wyeth, and Yahoo!

Note: I stopped counting at 25 clients on that list.....I was even in charge of one of the projects.....I look back on my old profession, being a Systems Programmer.....and I get the "Et Tu?" look back at me from the mirror....

www.cnn.com...

[Yi]reply to post by nativeokie
[more]
You worked hard...at least 6 days a week/12 hours a day? Who didn't??? As a college grad with a good resume, I worked that schedule even as a salaried field supervisor (10 stores) with Southland Corp (7-Eleven) and so did everyone else who expected to get ahead! That's a normal work ethic that only gets your proverbial foot in the door for later advancement.
You say that no one will hire you for a $25k job because you're over-qualified. Something else is hurting your interviewing process.

Well , the government prints trillions and trillions of bills everyday , i don't think the economy could crash. Especially to where people make only 50.00$ a week of the U.S country.

No the person that flips your burger, gets your coffee or process your Workers Comp Claim does not make too much money.

Wake up, it's the CEO's, Byonce (300+ million) and other stupid people that don't really "do the work" but they are talented in bs and able to manipulate people.

Now wake up further we are all being outsourced unless everyone bands together and starts putting a stop to this nonsense.

Outsourcing the American Economy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Is offshore outsourcing good or harmful for America? To convince Americans of outsourcing's benefits, corporate outsourcers sponsor misleading one-sided "studies."

Only a small handful of people have looked objectively at the issue. These few and the large number of Americans whose careers have been destroyed by outsourcing have a different view of outsourcing's impact. But so far there has been no debate, just a shouting down of skeptics as "protectionists."

Now comes an important new book, Outsourcing America, published by the American Management Association. The authors, two brothers, Ron and Anil Hira, are experts on the subject. One is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the other is professor at Simon Fraser University.

The authors note that despite the enormity of the stakes for all Americans, a state of denial exists among policymakers and outsourcing's corporate champions about the adverse effects on the US. The Hira brothers succeed in their task of interjecting harsh reality where delusion has ruled.

In what might be an underestimate, a University of California study concludes that 14 million white-collar jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced offshore. These are not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services. The authors note that these are the jobs of the American Dream, the jobs of upward mobility that generate the bulk of the tax revenues that fund our education, health, infrastructure, and social security systems.

The loss of these jobs "is fool's gold for companies." Corporate America's short-term mentality, stemming from bonuses tied to quarterly results, is causing US companies to lose not only their best employees-their human capital-but also the consumers who buy their products. Employees displaced by foreigners and left unemployed or in lower paid work have a reduced presence in the consumer market. They provide fewer retirement savings for new investment.

Nothink economists assume that new, better jobs are on the way for displaced Americans, but no economists can identify these jobs. The authors point out that "the track record for the re-employment of displaced US workers is abysmal: "The Department of Labor reports that more than one in three workers who are displaced remains unemployed, and many of those who are lucky enough to find jobs take major pay cuts. Many former manufacturing workers who were displaced a decade ago because of manufacturing that went offshore took training courses and found jobs in the information technology sector. They are now facing the unenviable situation of having their second career disappear overseas."

American economists are so inattentive to outsourcing's perils that they fail to realize that the same incentive that leads to the outsourcing of one tradable good or service holds for all tradable goods and services. In the 21st century the US economy has only been able to create jobs in nontradable domestic services-the hallmark of a third world labor force.

Prior to the advent of offshore outsourcing, US employees were shielded against low wage foreign labor. Americans worked with more capital and better technology, and their higher productivity protected their higher wages.

Outsourcing forces Americans to "compete head-to-head with foreign workers" by "undermining US workers' primary competitive advantage over foreign workers: their physical presence in the US" and "by providing those overseas workers with the same technologies."

The result is a lose-lose situation for American employees, American businesses, and the American government. Outsourcing has brought about record unemployment in engineering fields and a major drop in university enrollments in technical and scientific disciplines. Even many of the remaining jobs are being filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas. American employees are discharged after being forced to train their foreign replacements.

US corporations justify their offshore operations as essential to gain a foothold in emerging Asian markets. The Hira brothers believe this is self-delusion. "There is no evidence that they will be able to outcompete local Chinese and Indian companies, who are very rapidly assimilating the technology and know-how from the local US plants. In fact, studies show that Indian IT companies have been consistently outcompeting their US counterparts, even in US markets. Thus, it is time for CEOs to start thinking about whether they are fine with their own jobs being outsourced as well."

The authors note that the national security implications of outsourcing "have been largely ignored."

Outsourcing is rapidly eroding America's superpower status. Beginning in 2002 the US began running trade deficits in advanced technology products with Asia, Mexico and Ireland. As these countries are not leaders in advanced technology, the deficits obviously stem from US offshore manufacturing. In effect, the US is giving away its technology, which is rapidly being captured, while US firms reduce themselves to a brand name with a sales force.

The McKinsey report "should be viewed as a self-interested lobbying document that presents an unrealistically optimistic estimate of the impact of offshore outsourcing and an undeveloped and politically unviable solution to the problems they identify." www.counterpunch.org...

As I brought out yet another box of personal "stuff" (because I don't want to rent a uhaul when I am let go) I was sitting outside waiting for my carpool ride, and watched a group of about eight Indians emerge from our "tower" giggling and laughing, beaming with joy and climbing into a hotel suite van.

I'm training some of these smucks so that our CEO can report more "profit" once he takes my job and hands it to a non american.

Our government needs to look out for us but our government is run not by the people and for the people but by the large corporations and for the large corporations.

By the way, any of you folks work at or for Gallagher Bassett - they are quietly, one floor at a time outsourcing. Your job is not safe and if you are a "client" your claims and various "tasks" will be handled by "Team India" eventually (unless your last name is Gallagher)

Don't care, "it's not gonna happen to me" well just wait. I thought the same thing five years ago. We're all going to be living in grass huts if the common working man does not band together and demand a stop to this outsoucing. This is going to effect all of us (except the handful of elite people that run and own the corporations).

Read my location: I didn't choose it lightly when I joined ATS back a few years ago.

Ji' Nmastay (means good bye in Indian, better learn this language - that and Chinese)

One last thought, terrorism doesn't have to be accomplished by a big bang - a smarter way for terrorism to work is to little by little, quietly eat away at your enemies economy from the inside out like cancer...........smart




[edit on 29-8-2009 by ofhumandescent]

Lately corporations in the name of cost cutting and saving their bottom line have been cutting the pay of workers (if you don't get laid off) via eliminating benefits like 401K matching. You see an email that says due to poor economic conditions, they made the painful decision to eliminate company matching money. In effect they reduced your pay. This is after a similar email that said all pay was frozen at 2008 levels, in other words no pay increases even if you've been working your butt off and your local facility is working like crazy. Then your boss comes up with goals and objectives that you have to pretty much do in some of your personal time because all of your regular time is used to do all the extra work you typically do. He says your routine work is not considered on your performance review because that's just something you're supposed to do anyway. So now I expect one day because I'm not working nights and weekends with no extra pay, they may consider cutting me out some more. Of course if the economy picks up, they may treat us more fairly due to the risk we'll just leave the company. I know a few others who have.

Oh guess what? If you do an exceptional job of working away on one of their extra projects you know what happens? They use it as an example of what everyone else at other facilities should be doing. So now everyone else will be expected to put all that effort into something similar. All for the same pay we were making last year, minus the pay cut with no retirement money. It has been suggested that we need to save more now.

I think it all depends on what job you do, your value to the company, and what you can do for the company.

My boss is rich, he is the owner of the company I work for. He goes out every year and trades his Escalade in for a new one. But I believe he deserves it, he runs a multi-million dollar business that he built from the ground up. I'm sorry but if you started from nothing and built a company as large as him you're going to want compensation.

I don't believe I make enough money, and I make more than what most of you are saying you make, but I personally bring the company millions of dollars in sales a year. Last year I did over 10mil in sales, and I feel I deserve to be compensated for that.

reply to post by orionthehunter
Research vs asking on ATS. No the average worker does not "make too much". The problem is the BIG BOYS are giving themselves bigger raises, having the middle class bail them out and lobbying (own DC) for tax cuts for the top 1% elite rich. Educate yourself, start researching who is getting more than their fair share. Who comes in at 10 - leaves at 3 to play golf and makes millions of dollars a year.

The person who makes your breakfast burrito has to ask permission to pee and works their full 8 hours for a measily pittance.

The CEO's are the work 10-3 (and have 2 hour lunches) making millions.

I Haven't had a raise in two years.

There is no overtime, you are told that your work load has been calculated down to the minute and that you should be able to handle it between your eight hours.

The managers have sold their souls and funny, their going to get outsouced to India just like the rest of us.

There is enough for everyone, but some want it all and the rest are either too stupid to see this and stop it or just don't care.

2007: The Staggering Social Cost of U.S. Business Leadership (.pdf) This year we find that average CEO pay is 364 times the pay of an average US worker. faireconomy.org...

For fourteen years, in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies, UFE has published an annual report – Executive Excess (PDF) – comparing the pay of top CEOs to average workers.

We believe that the lack of pay equity in the US can be addressed by changing the rules. The better informed average workers are, the more they will be empowered to generate changes. faireconomy.org...

In addition to reports, we organize shareholder actions and support policy efforts by others.

Local is Global: "Shrink, Shift and Shaft"

We have observed a growing trend in modern "free" market systems that aims to institutionalize the financial interests of a wealthy minority at the expense of the needs of the impoverished majority. Nationally, this is accomplished through a strategy we call "shrink, shift and shaft":

•shrink public sector services and the power of democratic institutions and organized labor;
•shift the tax burden from the wealthy (owners and investors) to the worker;
•shaft those left behind by eliminating good paying jobs and eroding the social safety net.
The "shrink, shift and shaft" strategy relies on our government's ability to gain and maintain access to cheap labor markets and natural resources. Such tactics not only pit US workers and communities against each other and against those of other countries in a brutal race to the bottom; they also repress resistance against economic and ecological exploitation.

This economic model, often called neoliberalism, has yielded injustice, suffering, unemployment and a state of constant insecurity for the vast majority of the world's population.

Educate yourselves on the subject of wealth distribution

Americans don't make "too much" only the top 1% that are screwing the rest of us and most of you don't even see this or care.



[edit on 30-8-2009 by ofhumandescent]

It isn't about wages. it is about the improper flow of commerce in the US.

We have a cost of living. We purchase the goods we need. Those goods are more and more produced in other countries so the money that is made by them goes to other countries.

The people who have to buy those goods have fewer and fewer jobs and reducing value in what they do earn due to rampant inflation that will never stop.

The companies that take money from the US population actually are putting that money into production overseas and taking higher profits. They are removing a large amount of wealth from the continental US and moving it elsewhere. The wealth they hold on to is used to solidify their position and to ensure that they are allowed to continue to do so through the political lobby system.

The rich get richer. The poor stay poor and the middle class is losing a war of attrition.

Wages will always vary but when the jobs get scarcer and the money is always worth less then we'll never make enough.

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Wal-Mart is a good example.

They go into a community and undercut every business in town. Soon they have no competition and they are the only local source of food, clothes, ect. They pay people to run the wal-mart but it is a very small return to the community compared to what the old system of independent stores did.
They are essentially removing money from the local community and funneling it to a family of billionaires in Arkansas.

When you continuously remove capital from an economic system then it eventually weakens and dies. This is done on a larger scale with the entire country. The powers that be make up for deficit by printing money. This is an indirect tax that continuously drains more capital out of the system by reducing the value of the currency that we actually do earn.

It is a vicious spiral that has only one ending. A bankrupt population and a valueless currency.

What good is making 50,75,100 thousand a year if a dollar is only worth ten cents? It's not how much we make that is the problem. It is that the powers that be have devalued the dollar to a fraction of what it should be.

[edit on 073131p://f44Sunday by badgerprints]

reply to post by darklanser


A star for your keen observation and conscience.

Yes your right, Check out knowyournetworth.com...

It's nuts when you consider who has the wealth. No, they are not the individuals that are really making a difference in our society.

I've brought this up several times on ATS and most people either don't care or think .50 Cent being worth 550 million is fine.

Outrageous executive pay is symptom of a disease that has infected our entire economic system. It is a disease of greed and corruption made worse by the Bush administration’s obsession with further deregulating Wall Street and ideological aversion to oversight and accountability in our financial system.

While overpaid executives do well in the good times and bad (and they do very, very well indeed), America’s working families are bearing the worst economic crisis in our country since the Great Depression. Whether measured in lost jobs and homes, lower earnings, eroding retirement security or devastated communities, workers have paid the price for Wall Street’s greed.

But it gets even worse. The cost of deregulation and financial alchemy are far higher than the devastating direct effects on workers. The lasting damage is in missed opportunities and investments not made in the real economy. While money poured into exotic mortgage-backed securities and hedge funds, our pressing need for investments in clean energy, infrastructure, education and health care went unmet.

To fix our broken system we must re-regulate our financial markets. Just as passing the Employee Free Choice Act is central to securing the economic future of America’s working families, so is ensuring our financial markets are regulated.

The good news is that the framework for the needed financial services regulatory reform already is in front of us. The Special Report on Regulatory Reform by the Congressional Oversight Panel identifies the key principles essential for meaningful financial reform. The panel was established by Congress to monitor the bailout and to help ensure that aid to the financial sector is accompanied by meaningful market reforms. The report concluded that “the present regulatory system has failed to effectively manage risk, require sufficient transparency and ensure fair dealings.”

The new rules we need can be put this way: No more gambling with public money, no lying and no stealing. Self-regulation is not acceptable. Any regulator of system wide risk must be a fully accountable body and should not have the power to override investor and consumer protections.

U.S. Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairs of the House Finance Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, respectively, are working on new financial regulations right now. But banks, CEOs and their corporate lobbyists are working hard behind the scenes to make sure whatever new regulations are passed are toothless Band-Aids, designed to maximize PR benefit, not fix the system.

Take action today and tell Frank and Dodd we're counting on them to draft legislation that truly strengthens our financial regulations and begins curing the disease that has infected our economic system. We can’t afford not to.

www.aflcio.org...

[edit on 31-8-2009 by ofhumandescent]

reply to post by darklanser


and those "manufacturing jobs" aren't the only jobs being given away to third world countries.

Companies are now giving away white collar jobs too.

It's being done in my company and they know it's wrong because their doing it quickly and quietly. You won't know it's gonna hit you until you walk in and are told, "today is your last day, goodbye".

reply to post by Todeskopf


Net worth knowyournetworth.com...

Britney Spears 100m
T. Boone Pickens 2b
O.J.Simpson (before trial) 10m
Muhammad Ali 55m
Aaron Spelling 300m
Beyonce 315m

A chief executive officer of a Standard & Poor's 500 company was paid, on average, $10.4 million in total compensation in 2008, according to preliminary data from The Corporate Library.

Excessive executive compensation has taken center stage since the government bailout of banks that began in September 2008. Americans have expressed outrage as CEOs and other executives responsible for the financial crisis have pocketed millions of dollars from bonuses and golden parachutes. CEO perks alone grew in 2008 to an average of $336,248—or nine times the median salary of a full-time worker. Meanwhile, the economy tanked for working people while many companies were bailed out with more than $700 billion in taxpayer money, as well as low-interest loans and guarantees.

The case studies here focus on 10 executive compensation practices that define a broken system in which the American taxpayer is left holding the bag. Also in Executive PayWatch, you can find CEO compensation data for some of the country's largest companies, compare your pay to the CEOs, learn more about executives enjoying job and retirement security while fighting to keep workers from getting contracts, find out what you can do to put balance back into our economy and play a satisfying online game: Boot the CEO. www.aflcio.org...

No the average American worker does not make "too much".

Start researching wealth distribution. It is only a handful of folks and it's the ones that if they died tomorrow nobody would really miss what little they are contributing to our civilization as a whole.

There should be a ceiling on what people make, and your pay should be determined by what you contribute to and not how well you can bs people.