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Message:: [QUOTE="Good Cents, post: 3648847, member: 100720"]I picked "Bank Teller" out of a hat. Sure, automation is taking a lot of jobs away, but not all jobs. In China (or maybe it's Japan, I don't remember) they have automation for flipping burgers, making sandwiches, frying eggs, waiting tables, and all sorts of food prep that humans do here in the USA. At a certain point automation can take over most unskilled jobs, or even skilled labor. Then what? Only 5% of the population that is most highly educated gets to have jobs and everyone else starves? Okay, that's an extreme example, but even if it's 40% of the population who is educated "enough" to get the jobs out there. Then there's the rest of the population which can and will revolt if forced to live in poverty and virtual indentured servitude. Something's gotta give. But that's a tangent. My point was that there are many people who work hard, have SOME education but not as much as those at the top, and yet they earn 1,000% or 500% less than the executives. It's wrong, and not just from an ethical standpoint. It's a bad way to run the country. Sure, those who paid more for their education should reap extra benefits. Sure, those who worked hard to get up there should reap extra benefits. But there is a wide latitude to "extra benefits" and that space keeps growing larger and larger. Executive compensation has risen far higher, leaving non-executive compensation in the dust. Middle class compensation has barely risen at all in terms of percentage-wise. A lot of this has to do with outlawing most "collective bargaining" in the 80's other than gov't and a few other sectors. But now we're getting into politics. And yet, at the end of the day, it is politics that dictates "Policy" and it is "Policy" that creates situations whereby "Collective Bargaining", with all it's faults and corruption, kept wages from stagnating. And all the while Executive Compensation has been rising (percentage-wise). Of course shareholders are major beneficiaries of profit, but so are Executives who as standard practice nowadays get stock options as part of their Compensation Package. Anyone who took Economics 101 knows that it's the Middle Class that keeps the country from going into an economic depression. If the 1% or even the 10% keep getting richer, and the majority flat out can't afford basic food and housing costs, then as a country we are in deep trouble. As a consumer based economy, if the Middle Class can't spend money, the economy will spiral downhill. When people in the 10% make lots of extra money, they put it into savings, they aren't spending it, and spending it is what the country needs to keep the economic wheels turning. Executive Compensation has gotten way out of hand. Government dictates everything about fiscal policy in the USA. And I mean everything. If companies cannot police themselves, then it is not a far stretch to have limits to Executive Compensation. It sounds horrifically Socialist. But it's not. It can be done by way of corporate taxes, which is how the government used to keep that divide relatively balanced. Unfortunately, a large part of the country has been convinced that anything resembling a socialist policy will turn the USA into Venezuela. But the sad truth is that Venezuela and countries like it started off as dens of corruption at every level with virtual dictators and that was their downfall, not socialist policies. Every country in the world where corruption is widespread at every level of gov't - no matter what the structure of gov't (capitalist, socialist, democratic, theocratic) - has people living with a lower quality of life due to widespread government corruption. It has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with widespread gov't corruption. Anyway, "Shareholders" benefiting from all those corporate profits are often people with a 401k and Executives who get paid with stocks (on top of multi-million dollar salaries). How many people under age 40 do you think have a 401k? Not many, to say the least. The majority in this country are struggling with housing and food costs and are not able to make ends meet. I'm not talking about people on drugs or criminals or people here illegally. I'm talking about honest citizens who work hard and pay their taxes. Housing and food and basics have become serious struggles for way too many hardworking people. And speaking of "Bubbles", it may not happen in my lifetime, but at a certain point the masses will revolt. The economy is good now. But at a certain point, after enough "downturns", and "bubbles" burst, sending out $450 checks to every person in the country (as was done in 2008) is not going to cut it and people will storm the Bastille. The 1% and 10% will run to their secure locations overseas and cash out their Swiss Bank Accounts or Cayman Islands Accounts or wherever they put their money these days. It will be the 90% of the country that suffers. And I wonder if even an FDR or a "New Deal" could help turn things around then. Of course I hope it will never happen. But ethics no longer play any role in the quest for a rise in share price or personal gain. There is no more shame in greed run amok. Our culture has put monetary wealth on the highest pedestal. It's in our movies, our TV shows, our music, our books. When monetary wealth is the highest value and there is nothing greater, people have no reason not to step all over each other to get there. There is no shame in it. Why shouldn't people knowingly be a cog in the wheel that will hurt lots of people, if being that cog or looking away helps their own personal monetary aspirations? I'm not finished, but I think this rant is long enough.[/QUOTE]

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