ZH — Should You Be Subsidizing Executive Compensation In The Name Of Job Creation?

On Friday every main stream media organization was hyperventilating over the amazing NFP number and the Unemployment rate. Three years after the great recession ended JOBS were created. Hallelujah - end of story. But has anyone really thought about what kinds of jobs are being created (other than Zerohedge). [As a matter of fact, yes.] Has anyone thought about how their tax dollars are being used to support the very generous compensation packages of Executives (higher stock prices are always good for executives who are compensated in stock) while the “newly employed” are compensated with barely sustenance level wages and NO benefits. [Again, yes.] Has anyone raised the notion in this election cycle about how the “soft landing” in American living standards, is going to affect GDP growth going forward, considering that the US is an economy based 70% on consumption. [Yep, again. Why do these ZH people think that they are only ones who have a clue? I guess they don't get out much.]

On Friday Caterpillar announced they were closing a factory in Canada. They had wanted the workers to take a 50% pay-cut plus a substantial cut to benefits. The workers understandably were not excited at the prospect of going from earning $67,000 a year to $28,000. One might think that Caterpillar was a struggling company, asking workers to accept a 50% pay-cut, one couldn’t be more wrong. Profit was up 36% in 2011 vs 2012. Oddly the CEO’s (also Chairman of the Board) pay package in 2010 (latest available numbers) was quadrupled from 2009, to a total of $22.5 million including a $16 million stock grant.

Read it at Zero Hedge

Should You Be Subsidizing Executive Compensation In The Name Of Job Creation?
Submitted by lizzy36

This is reverse socialism. It is the redistribution of wealth from the lower to the upper class with explicit State support. It is the sort of wealth redistribution that if allowed to go unchecked leads to social instability.

Is Zero Hedge sounding like Mother Jones, or is Mother Jones sounding like Zero Hedge? Either way, I like it.

BTW, someone tell lizzy that this is Mussolini's definition of "fascism" rather than "reverse socialism." "Reverse socialism" is capitalism. Capitalism is private ownership of means of production, while socialism is public ownership of means of production.