Could you survive on only $500,000 a year?

[brtelec]

I think you all misunderstand me. First I have no sympathy for any of these people. My comment about going from Millions to zero meant they should be kissing our hairy beanbags for the opportunity to not be unemployed. If I did not think that letting them just fail as institutions would have been more detrimental to the average person out there, I would have been thrilled to see them all out on their asses.

The fact that the financial business is an insider business is just life. That is just how it is. You can go almost anywhere that the payscales are high and it will always be staffed with relatives, friends, and as favors. That is human nature to look out for your own. In the marine industry it is the norm. You will not see a Harbor pilot or river tug company that is not staffed with family. Don't kid yourself these guys make really good money, $200k+. That is good money for people that probably do not even have a GED. No one says it's "right" or "fair", you do not have to condone it, it just is.

 

[guanaco]

After Obama's decision today to limit the salaries of bank executives to $500k I wondered how many people at Citibank would be effected 5, 10, 20 (it is a big company)

Nowhere close; an executive recruitment specialist on the radio today estimated that Citibank has over 1000 employees that make over $500k; wow!

Now, if you make $6million a year does that mean that you have to work the rest of 2009 for free?

No wonder Gen sales have been up!

So it has started... my goodness, everyone knows I'm not an Obama fan and this is proving my point more and more, but cutting the salary of someone is simply not fair... even if they were making millions they fought hard to get to the top and earn that amount of money, ok, maybe not ALL but at least the majority. Why does it seem that the hard working people earning a wealthy salary due to their own hard work and dedication are the ones being punished for their success?! :|

 

[hooligan]

I dunno. I'm on the fence about this one. On one hand, I agree with what guana says above. On the other hand, if you're asking for government hand-outs, there needs to be some oversight as to how that bailout money is spent (obviously they aren't to be trusted to make the "right" decisions, otherwise they wouldn't be in this mess).

The biggest crime of all is the executives that ran these companies into the ground with these reckless and foolhardy programs are getting HUGE "golden parachute" type severance packages in the TENS of millions of dollars.

I don't know about you, but if I got fired for not doing my job well, the last thing I would see is any sort of monetary reward. Insane!

 

[BurgerFlaggen]

Wow, I don't really tune into politics these days due to the hyperbole that rolls off so many lips - lips with agendas.
I am completely against all the "let's feel sorry for sad sack over there and give them money for nothing" ideology.
For example, if GM, Ford, or Mopar is in dire straits because they allowed union thugs to push them around, well they should have had more spine.
File chapter 11, continue ops while you reorganize into something viable, and come back swinging. That's nothing new.
Talk about the ENTIRE US auto industry dying on the vine is simply fear mongering set forth by the folks with a vested interest in things the way they are, up to and including ppl with a hand out for a big, globby slice of that trillion dollar pork pie they're calling "bailout".

Government intervention in business is the antithesis to Capitalism at every level, except criminal (i.e. ponzi scams like our pal Madoff).
Let the strong survive, the weak adjust, and the inexorably dying, die.
Get the f@#k out of my wallet and let me spend my own money. People will vote with their dollars and the winners will live. That is, so long as everyone's not frightened into total squirrel mode by now.

My out of date, probably underinformed 2 cents.
Oh, yeah I could make it on $500k with a few very minor cutbacks.
8)

And yeah, guanaco has it right. Let's not punish success. That's just plain dumb. Here's your sign.

 

[brtelec]

I agree you should never punish success, but you should also not reward mismanagement with taxpayer dollars. These people are not being rewarded for a job well done, they are pilfering our tax dollars after a royal screwing up of their jobs. Jobs which the mishandling of, resulted in a lot of decent hard working people getting screwed. If they are willing to take the bailout money, they can certainly be told how they can use it. If these people had done their jobs they would not need this bailout money and it would be business as usual, multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses and all. They however dropped the ball, if there were any justice in this at all they would all be on Monster.com looking for jobs.

 

[Yannou]

I dunno. I'm on the fence about this one. On one hand, I agree with what guana says above. On the other hand, if you're asking for government hand-outs, there needs to be some oversight as to how that bailout money is spent (obviously they aren't to be trusted to make the "right" decisions, otherwise they wouldn't be in this mess).

The biggest crime of all is the executives that ran these companies into the ground with these reckless and foolhardy programs are getting HUGE "golden parachute" type severance packages in the TENS of millions of dollars.

I don't know about you, but if I got fired for not doing my job well, the last thing I would see is any sort of monetary reward. Insane!

+ 1 fully agree with that....If I failed in my job I will not have any parachut...s

 

[madcatlancelot]

Are you kidding me?!? With us$500k a year you will live like a king from where i came from. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

+2: I'd be kicked out of the door if I even mess out just once. Zero tolerance for outages!

 

[UFUKNUT]

are u kidding me? i live of 45k a year... with over 10x amount of that i would soooooo happy, heck i would settle for 100k... i also read in a news article that the 500k for those ceo will "hurt the wallet", those bastards! bank of america ceo for over 20 million last year, and 18 million of that was in bonuses.... must be nice, ask for billions from the government and give the ceo a nice chunk... if they couldnt survive, they should have left them die... damn gov't assistance....

 

[hk45ca]

This has zero to do with communism and everything to do with what is fair.

Ahhh... yes... for each according to need and from each according to ability...sounds familiar - I believe it was Carl Marx that suggested that.

Is it fair that I had to go to school, part time, without the help from the government, put myself through college and law school, studied for months to pass multiple bar exams for me to be able to earn what I do....is it FAIR that back in the hay day - mortgage brokers without even a GED made more then I do in a year in a month? FAIR...hmm - kinda goes against the idea of capitalism, doesnt it? Without a long political discussion, Capitalism rests on laze fare government involvement. The more government regulates any industry the less capitalist pursuits are left.

If banks sold bogus loans to high risk individuals and are now in trouble - let them fail. If the auto industry paid 72.00 per hour to union thugs, and failed to compete with the foreighn manufacturers - let them fail...Our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves over this corporate bail out bull crap - and they are right.

Sorry to vent - flame away.

well, you asked for it,
the hourly wage the right wing was spreading for uaw represented auto workers was 73.00 per hour not 72.00. the hourly wages in a uaw represented american auto plant is 14.00 to 28.00 per hour. if you bothered to search for and read their labor contracts you would have known that, i understand it is easier to just listen to rush dumbo and the rest of the far right wing spew bullshit instead.

manufacturing productivity comparisons for american union represented and japanese non union represented auto plants for cars and truck in direct market competition.

dodge caliber, uaw plant, time to build, 17.0 hours.
toyota matrix, non union plant, time to build, 24.96 hours.

pontiac grand prix/buick lacrosse, uaw plant, time to build, 17.18 hours.
toyota camry, non union plant, time to build, 19.79 hours.

ford f-series trucks, uaw plant, time to build, 19.19 hours.
toyota tundra, non union plant, time to build, 31.92 hours.

for those of you that don't like the overall quality of the american cars? you can thank management for that. the workers only assemble the parts, the overall quality of the pieces is controlled by management and the hourly workers have no say so about the quality of them. :wink:

 

[andreww]

So it has started... my goodness, everyone knows I'm not an Obama fan and this is proving my point more and more, but cutting the salary of someone is simply not fair... even if they were making millions they fought hard to get to the top and earn that amount of money, ok, maybe not ALL but at least the majority. Why does it seem that the hard working people earning a wealthy salary due to their own hard work and dedication are the ones being punished for their success?! :|

You are kidding right? These banks have run themselves in to the ground with bad business decisions and greed. Why should the fat cats be paid for this, and why should any of them merit bonuses? America is f_cked right now simply because large corporations like banks, the auto industry, utilities, and the real-estate companies have sold the American working class their products via credit. People with limited income are now driving luxury cars to their half million dollar homes filled with iPhones, HDTVs and huge monthly cable and internet bills, and they have no way of paying for all this stuff. People are living way beyond their means simply because the companies allowed them to do so. Once the working class is tapped (which it is) the corporations start crumbling like a house of cards.

Its a mess, and its going to get much worse.

 

[andreww]

well, you asked for it,
the hourly wage the right wing was spreading for uaw represented auto workers was 73.00 per hour not 72.00. the hourly wages in a uaw represented american auto plant is 14.00 to 28.00 per hour.

I think it was made quite clear that those higher figures included their benefits packages, which are far superior to what your average American worker receives.

 

[sconehead]

This has zero to do with communism and everything to do with what is fair.

Ahhh... yes... for each according to need and from each according to ability...sounds familiar - I believe it was Carl Marx that suggested that.

Is it fair that I had to go to school, part time, without the help from the government, put myself through college and law school, studied for months to pass multiple bar exams for me to be able to earn what I do....is it FAIR that back in the hay day - mortgage brokers without even a GED made more then I do in a year in a month? FAIR...hmm - kinda goes against the idea of capitalism, doesnt it? Without a long political discussion, Capitalism rests on laze fare government involvement. The more government regulates any industry the less capitalist pursuits are left.

If banks sold bogus loans to high risk individuals and are now in trouble - let them fail. If the auto industry paid 72.00 per hour to union thugs, and failed to compete with the foreighn manufacturers - let them fail...Our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves over this corporate bail out bull crap - and they are right.

Sorry to vent - flame away.

well, you asked for it,
the hourly wage the right wing was spreading for uaw represented auto workers was 73.00 per hour not 72.00. the hourly wages in a uaw represented american auto plant is 14.00 to 28.00 per hour. if you bothered to search for and read their labor contracts you would have known that, i understand it is easier to just listen to rush dumbo and the rest of the far right wing spew bullshit instead.

manufacturing productivity comparisons for american union represented and japanese non union represented auto plants for cars and truck in direct market competition.

dodge caliber, uaw plant, time to build, 17.0 hours.
toyota matrix, non union plant, time to build, 24.96 hours.

pontiac grand prix/buick lacrosse, uaw plant, time to build, 17.18 hours.
toyota camry, non union plant, time to build, 19.79 hours.

ford f-series trucks, uaw plant, time to build, 19.19 hours.
toyota tundra, non union plant, time to build, 31.92 hours.

for those of you that don't like the overall quality of the american cars? you can thank management for that. the workers only assemble the parts, the overall quality of the pieces is controlled by management and the hourly workers have no say so about the quality of them. :wink:

Don't get me wrong on this HK. I'm all for unions, without whom we'd all still be working long ours for a pitance. Do you not think the time spent to build a car might be representative of it's complexity and attention to QC?

 

[BurgerFlaggen]

So it has started... my goodness, everyone knows I'm not an Obama fan and this is proving my point more and more, but cutting the salary of someone is simply not fair... even if they were making millions they fought hard to get to the top and earn that amount of money, ok, maybe not ALL but at least the majority. Why does it seem that the hard working people earning a wealthy salary due to their own hard work and dedication are the ones being punished for their success?! :|

You are kidding right? These banks have run themselves in to the ground with bad business decisions and greed. Why should the fat cats be paid for this, and why should any of them merit bonuses? America is f_cked right now simply because large corporations like banks, the auto industry, utilities, and the real-estate companies have sold the American working class their products via credit. People with limited income are now driving luxury cars to their half million dollar homes filled with iPhones, HDTVs and huge monthly cable and internet bills, and they have no way of paying for all this stuff. People are living way beyond their means simply because the companies allowed them to do so. Once the working class is tapped (which it is) the corporations start crumbling like a house of cards.

Its a mess, and its going to get much worse.

I think you've summed up the root issue well. Perhaps the lending should have been regulated better to prevent the predatory practices.
Although I do not have my own clearly defined solution to this mess, I don't think redistribution of wealth at the hands of government is it.

I think it was made quite clear that those higher figures included their benefits packages, which are far superior to what your average American worker receives.

Reportedly receiving something around 40% - 60% of their (inflated) salary for years after they stop working - yeah, that's atypical of benefits these days.
That's a lot of overhead when you think about it.

Yes, Unions served a purpose. Somewhere, sometime back, things went off the rails.

 

[seank]

There are other issues at work here as well. The fact that the baby boomer generation is transitioning from their peak spending years to their peak saving years is huge. That and the fact that we have a declining population here in the US hurts us. What happens when the baby boomers start their saving years? They downsize. There are more of them than there of us. What happens then? You have a ton of homes on the market that's already overbuilt that can't be bought because there physically not enough people to buy them. We've got a a long and painful road ahead of us. I don't believe letting everyone go out of business is the answer.




Sean

 

[hk45ca]

Don't get me wrong on this HK. I'm all for unions, without whom we'd all still be working long ours for a pitance. Do you not think the time spent to build a car might be representative of it's complexity and attention to QC?

management sets the production rate and speed of the assembly line and how much time is spent on each car, it all about hours per unit. once again the time spent on qc and attention to detail is set by management.

i am simply stunned that last year when the bush white house let wall street have billions of dollars not one ceo or employee of any of these institutions were asked to take a cut in pay or benefits. when it came to a unionized auto plant it was all about attacking the wages of a normal working man in a industry that the labor cost is only 10% of the total operating costs. where were all of those complaining last year? did they just wake up from a coma? they want the union workers to take massive pay and benefit cuts but in the same breath say the government can't set the wages corporations pay people. WTF?????

the leader of the free world gets paid 400,000.00 per year. there is not one ceo of any company that has a harder job than that and none of them should be paid one penny more.

@andreww,

the 73.00 per hour was conjured up by,
the hourly wage of the currant workers which i have previously mentioned is 14.00 to 28.00 per hour plus,
the total benefits/pension, health care and other compensation for the currant workers plus,
the pension and health care costs of all retirees. it is in no way the wages they get paid per hour. they added all of those costs togather, spread it accross all of the union workes and added it to their negociated wages. this was typical right wing crap.

it is the same as the company you work for saying they pay you 5 million dollars a year because they added their utility bills to your wages. :wink:

 

[andreww]

Got ya HK, but here is my problem...

I work in a non union job for a large financial company. We have already let a number of employees go, execs have taken pay cuts, and salaries of everyone else have been frozen. Needless to say there will be no bonuses either. So why should the auto industry workers feel they are above the rest of us? Before one cent of my tax dollar is provided as aid to the auto industry, I would like to know that the companies are running as lean as possible. If that means layoffs, then so be it.

 

[horologie_unitas]

where is my flamesuit ?

i think the recession is home made, and serves a purpose.

when gas was at $ 4.50, the wallstreet bloodsuckers bought contingents of millions of gallons in daytrading and sold to the most needy at highest cost,
nobody cared that they put millions into their pockets while the little man doesnt know how to pay the bills.


the banks and lenders....jiggling and playing hundreds of millions - money the average american works hard for.....suddenly, hey, your 401 K

lost 30 %. tough shit. these guys are criminals. it has nothing to do with punishing the hard-working and educated.

and lets not forget.....economical recession ? the US economy can afford a military budget of 345 BILLION ! ( per year )

paid by ? taxes.....while millions of american blue collar workers lost their home and existance.

while the war beneficiaries..... CASH in big ! not caring if their country goes belly up.

i can only advice to anyone of you to watch the inconvenient ZEITGEIST movie ( you tube )

there are a lot of things that need to be reformed.....and criminals need to be punished.

 

[SLK55]

@HK

I am confused...why is it that when someone starts talking sense people immediately use the one line that seems to get them through hard times - "typical right wing crap" :roll: Who said I was a right winger? Or that Rush Limbo had anything to do with my opinions? For an open-minded, sensitive modern liberal you sure seem to be making all these judgment calls about me...

ANyway, to clarify - I am FAR away from being a "right winger," but I am fiscally conservative. The hourly rate I am quoting includes BENEFITS (not utilities or other nonsense you mentioned) - These BENEFITS include large amounts of vacation and sick days, extremely comprehensive healthcare, dental, vision, 401K, retirement, vesting, workers comp, etc. If you are talking about a straight salary - would you rather that they paid these people $73.00 per hour but not give them any workers comp benefits, health insurance, life insurance, retirement or other benefits? Then they would be contract, non-union workers. Either way thats how much they end up making or "taking home" as you would put it - with all their benefits value. You cant dispute it - no matter how much you listen to Al Franklin and the now-debunked and bankrupt Air America.

Sorry for the reality check.... I try to usually not waste my time with them, but in your case I made an exception. And I dont appreciate being called a "right winger" especially since it is MY money being used to bail out the UAW - not yours.

 

[PHicks]

This topic has been a blast to follow; thanks for the input everyone.

I guess I was a little surprised to see the $500k limit, I was expecting to see something more along the lines of requiring executives to require shareholder approval for packages above a certain $ amount. Clearly Obama was sending a very strong message to wall street.

 

[suvettez400]

I work in financing so when I saw the topic I did chuckle a little. Yes i could live on $500k a year, but the sad part is I have met a few people who's annual vehicle and mortgage payments exceed that $ amount. I guess the new Phantom will have to wait until next year.

P.S I agree with TEHFLEA. Id still buy reps to....Just more of them