Even with inflation in 1970. It only took 1 worker

[indexer]

I have met a lot of CEOs who work less than 40 hours a week - they are always out somewhere that has nothing to do with business. The hardest workers are those executives with line responsibility below the CEO. CEOs also have company paid liability insurance.

The only CEOs working for $1 salaries are those who have screwed up or those who work for companies that have screwed up. Of course they make up for it with other deferred compensation. They are not stupid.

There does need to be a more balance between what a CEO contributes to a company and what he is paid versus what a worker contributes and what he is paid. In real value terms, CEOs are overpaid. Most of the key decisions are done by those below the CEO level. It is the 50-50 propositions that are bucked up to the CEO and a coin toss might be just as good as his insight.

Quote from itsame:

The bullcrap is complaining about how much someone with more education, experience, motivation and commitment than the average worker makes.

CEOs don't work 40 hour weeks. They also generally have more education. The average worker includes 30 year olds while the average CEO is older. The average worker can't go to jail when the financial statement aren't right (not right doesn't mean fraudulent). The average worker has 1/10000th the liability a CEO has. The average worker would not take the risk of a $1 salary and base the rest on performance. The average worker does not get his personal email and number plastered on the internet when things go wrong.

I'm not saying come CEOs aren't overpaid, but to compare them to the average worker from 30 years ago and then today is not apple to apples. The job of a CEO has changed so much while the average worker is just that, average.

 

[jueco2005]

True but....................
Education has priceless components too. Today I enjoy the good payment of a senior accountant, if many start getting accounting degrees my salary could go down as I face stronger competition. However, I would still be a professional and despite the fact that I'd have stronger competition and lower wages does not take away the other priceless benefits a college degree offers.
I think college education is very important, we should not think of it only in market terms, but also in socioeconomic terms.

Quote from indexer:

Traditional college education is turning into a big scam. It is way too expensive for the value you receive. People get into debt up to their eye balls or their parents give a big chunk of their retirement money in return for ever lower paying jobs after graduation. When everyone becomes a college graduate, it is not rare or as valuable anymore.

There is nothing in a regular bachelors degree that could not be learned from a good low cost on-line college. You could take your lessons from the best professors instead of some teaching assistant. Some foundation should step in and offer free on-line accredited college degrees.

This way people could graduate without debt and work their way up.

 

[jueco2005]

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&postid=2322852

Check awesome inflation data here.

Quote from Anaconda:

You honestly believe food prices went up only 3% from 2007 to 2008?

I keep track of this and it's 10-15% a year depending on the item. Some items undergo regular 20% increases for the past 5 years.

Here is something I found quick:

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/70sfood.html

Now go look up these prices at your local supermarket. And consider how much the food quality has also deteriorated.

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from makloda:
Good. Then what's so bad about the way people currently live as you say? There is no reason to complain at all for today's middle class. Let them live in modest homes, let them drive old cars. They have it just as good or bad as the 70s' middle class had it.

You think the 70s was a working class paradise? Big homes, 2 cars, big vacations, new clothes every month like on MTV Cribs? Of course not. Then why do working class people expect that today?

Life is what you make of it.

So then people don’t live movie star lifestyles like you say?! Why are you so insistent that people not have anything? The rich get bailouts and bonuses, the poor get laid off and critisized for having cable tv.

Let’s talk about some of the things I expected, but see so far away. In 1975 my mom got $12 an hour working at a grocery store. In high school, I worked at that same grocery store. Under the new union contract, after several years, the most I could have ever hoped to make was probably $12, - 30 YEARS LATER!! I know someone who just worked there. Just in the few years since I quit there and she worked there, they have managed to reduce Sunday pay from 1 ½ times to $1 extra an hour. Have food prices lowered to reflect the lower labor costs? HA! I doubt it.

Both my parents graduated from a private university (Catholic University) without ever taking out a student loan. I think they got partial scholarship and worked part time to pay the rest and their living expenses (lived off campus). Does anybody think this is possible nowadays? A month ago I went to a career training school to look into what they offered. $16,000 for a 9 month course!

My parents bought our 1500 sf house in 1984 for 60k. Obviously even with the bubble burst, this is nowhere near attainable. Townhouses start at 250k where I live, even condos are over 200. You want to know why people took out 100% mortgages? Because how could they ever pay rent and save 50k for a downpayment? By the time they save the 50k, housing prices would just keep going up and they would have to save even more. So I hope prices continue to crash so the new homebuyers someday have a chance to buy something affordable.

Look, the gap between the poor and rich has been steadily increasing for 30 years resulting in the mess we’re in now. Mostly due to inflation, but also other things. So maybe our parents did have it a little easier. At least they didn’t have to compete with immigrants to get jobs at McDonald’s. Of course you can still make it nowadays, you just have to work twice as hard.

 

[Pilotboy]

Quote from Trader666:

Then become a CEO. Instead of whining about what others have, focus on what you can do for yourself.

Well do you know how to become a CEO these days? Lots of hard work? Lots of schooling? Dedication? No, you have to be connected. All the corporate boards have been takin over by individuals who all play golf together, dine at their country clubs, and are interconnected with the politicians.

You think Hilary Clinton got on Walmart's board from her hard work? Tony Snow and Dan Quayle worked their way up the ladder at Cerebus Capital Management.

Dude, wake up. I'm not complaining, just telling it like it is. The thread started as why the middle class can't live comfortably on one income anymore. This is why.

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from my7tvette:
Hmm, lets delve more deeply into this idea that one can lead a 1970's lifestyle on one 30k salary for a small family of 4. 30K would be about 2500/month. Lets lop off maybe 400 for taxes, so $2100/month.

Lets deduct monthly expenses: rent $775, gas/electricity/water/basic telephone $150, groceries $600 (that's about $5/person per day, before you start slamming me), gasoline for our one car $80 (as long as oil prices stay down anyway), car payments/maintenance for our one automobile, $200 (I haven't had car payments that low since my very first new car, a 1995 sentra with no heat/air) health insurance $200 (thats pretty cheap considering many employer health plans don't help out much with dependent coverage)....

Well we're up to about $2000/month expenses already, and we haven't made any contributions to any retirement plans, put any $$ away for kids educations, we haven't purchases any incidentals like soap, shampoo, clothing, etc. and hopefully we were able to furnish our apartment previously with yard sale stuff. And not one damn thing has broken and needed to be fixed or replaced.

I would love for someone to shoot holes in my shoestring analysis, because I'm actually starting to depress myself.

See, you can’t give real life examples like this around here. Once these people realize all their bashing on the middle class and poor is flawed, they simply stop posting. Watch this. Give some more real life examples, and this thread will be more dead than a turkey on Thanksgiving. They want to blame everything on the poor people who Clinton allowed to get mortgages. They think people’s cable bill is the reason they live paycheck to paycheck.

So taking this extravagant lifestyle that you laid out here, what luxuries does anybody suggest we live without? These stats are actually on the low side. 1 bedroom apartments start at $900 where I live. My HMO plan with the highest co-pay’s possible is $272 a month for just me (24 years old). I can’t imagine what it would cost for a family of 4. What about the mechanic. Now, they work hard and all, but how come everytime I go there it is at least $500? Doesn’t matter what it is, but it’s always at least that much and sometimes more. You also forgot to add in the 25% interest credit cards that people have despite their perfect payment history.

I keep hearing this “live within you means.” But nobody gives any examples. Take the above scenario. If this family is still spending what more than they make, what things does everybody suggest that they give up? Their health insurance? Their food? Should they live in a shack instead of an apartment? Somebody please explain what living whithin your means is when you are already doing that! Talk is cheap. Let’s starting talking about real life situations. What should this family give up.

Here is my list of luxuries

Cell phone - $70 a month
Blockbuster - $36
Movie theatre(once a month, no popcorn) - $10
Cable/internet - $20
Bottled water, 2 a day 20 cents each, - $12

I can’t really think of anything else right now. So all my luxuries add up to ….. $148 a month. Wow that’s just about what my car insurance is alone.

 

[harkm]

I have a auto service business and when fuel prices went up I raised my prices too. I didn't just raise them a little either. A $75 dollar repair is now $125, for example. I could sense that customer's didn't even blink at the price increase. Maybe people were only relating in terms of how much it costs at the pump.

Fuel prices have now declined and my repair prices are still way above where they were. It is almost like customers are conditioned that the purchasing power of their dollars are less. Of course, if I sense that customers are reluctant to pay higher prices I will lower them. So far, I haven't noticed any reluctance.

 

[Pilotboy]

Quote from itsame:

The bullcrap is complaining about how much someone with more education, experience, motivation and commitment than the average worker makes.

CEOs don't work 40 hour weeks. They also generally have more education. The average worker includes 30 year olds while the average CEO is older. The average worker can't go to jail when the financial statement aren't right (not right doesn't mean fraudulent). The average worker has 1/10000th the liability a CEO has. The average worker would not take the risk of a $1 salary and base the rest on performance. The average worker does not get his personal email and number plastered on the internet when things go wrong.

I'm not saying come CEOs aren't overpaid, but to compare them to the average worker from 30 years ago and then today is not apple to apples. The job of a CEO has changed so much while the average worker is just that, average.

A CEO go to jail when the financial statements aren't right? Are you kidding me? Where have you been the past year. All the CEOs of our biggest financial institutions (and ratings agencies) committed outright fraud with the mortgages they gave out. They racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. Did we send them to jail? Uh, no, we gave them $700 billion in taxpayer money. Enron accounting has become the norm with Bernanke, Paulson, and now Geithner overseeing these crooks.

Dude, if you can't see this now...

 

[Sandybestdog]

These are some stats I came up with a while ago. I took the CPI, which we all no is bogus, and used that to find out what minimum wage should be if it were indexed to it. My conclusion is that in 2007 it should have been $8.83. Then I took the average cost of a house in the in 1975 and the average in 2007. If minimum wage were indexed to housing prices, then it should be $12.73. Again, this is minimum wage, so actual wages should be higher. So wages are LOWER than they were in the 70’s, not higher.

 

[indexer]

Globalization is good for the rich and the poor but it is deadly to the middle class of developed countries. Skilled work can always be done cheaper in places where the cost of living is less. The middle class is all about skilled work.