Thread1) Is that a question? Or sarcasm. Because if it’s sarcasm there is some fundamental stuff you’re not understanding. And if it’s a question I’m happy to answer. No, workers don’t own stock. Not at Disney.Especially the most vulnerable ones at the bottom of the totem pole
2) so this matters to them very much. The argument for the cut was that it would spur companies to reinvest in growth, hire more workers, and/or raise wages. When they instead buy back shares they drive up the price of the stock and yes that is great for shareholders....
3) but most CEO compensation nowadays comes in the form of stock so when they do this they are primarily raising their own pay and the pay of those around them in the executive suite. But 80% of Americans only own 8% of stocks. That leaves 20% with 80%.....
4) So that represents a big shift over the last couple decades. It wasn’t always this way. So while we used to see the stock market as a good measure of the health of the economy, it is no longer a helpful way of understanding how most people are doing....
5) and that’s how a company can be wildly profitable and it’s CEO get a 423mm pay package while some of his own people are sleeping in their cars. The tax cut was structured for maximum benefit at the top and minimum at the bottom
6) mind you, CEO’s did have the discretion to get some of the windfall to workers in pay adjustments. Disney did that. They gave bonuses. But bonuses, while nice, are a short term, discretionary benefit that happens once.
7) But if the tax cut is permanent and frees up enough money to offer bonuses why wasn’t this windfall offered as a permanent pay raise to employees? Well, because the bonus was meant to quiet down the low income folks while the money grab went on at the top.
8) And so while unemployment is down, real wages have continued to decline along with it. That means that the actual buying power of people’s salaries goes down year over year so that if they don’t get raises they can afford less and less.
9) you can start at a company on what feels like a hefty hourly wage but if housing, education, health care child care and transportation costs rise over the next 20 years, you will gradually move closer and closer to poverty—even with occasional COL adjustments.
10) and if unemployment is down and productivity is up and real wages are down all that adds up to an environment in which people who work are less and less able to do things like save, and buy stock, and invest in all the ways the middle class used to build wealth.
11) this is not a glitch. It’s a FEATURE. The people who call themselves fiscal conservatives are not conservative at all.They’re Randian scam artists who’ve invested four decades of their lives into assaulting the power and dignity of working people in every way possible.
12) and as a result of their policies our debt and deficit are about to explode and they will leave office having eviscerated the long term well being of the American economy. But they will be obscenely rich! And isn’t that what counts most?
