I was originally considering doing a bunch of research into this subject and
try to write an opinion posting about it, but after starting to look around I
found the subject entirely to depressing. Don't get me wrong, it's an
important subject that interest me, however, I just don't seem to have the
enthusiasm to do it properly. Not to mention the fact that I'm far from an
authority on the subject and can only go on my personal experiences.
That
being said, my personal experiences aren't very positive over the past few
years. I've watch the cost of living in general go through the roof while my
pay has gone down. And I know my story isn't unique in any way. I think part
of the issue exists in greed. I've read about what is called
Trickle-down economics which says basically that what is
good for the rich is good for the country. In other words, if the wealthy
benefit then they will share their wealth to those lower on the financial
ladder. I guess this sounds good in theory, but it doesn't take into account
the human capacity for self-centered greed. It just takes a look at the most
recent
Executive Excess Report to show how big the disparity is.
To give kind of a time line they have a nice chart on page 30 of the 60 page
report that shows the trend of average CEO pay to Average Worker pay starting
in 1990 to 2006. In 1990 the ratio was 107:1 and peaked at 525:1 in 2000. It
has since dropped slightly to 411:1 in 2006. At the very least it went down
slightly but really, how much does anyone need to earn? Lets assume that the
average worker gets $30,000 a year. That means that the average CEO gets
$12,330,000 a year. How's that for perspective? What happened to the
trickle down? What's the with the 1980 ratio of 42:1? At that rate the
average CEO would only earn a paltry $1,260,000 a year, more than enough to
live one heck of a good life with a very comfortable retirement. I could go on
but if this sort of thing interests you grab the report. I'm sure it's not
perfect but it sure some good food for thought.
On a related note let us consider the
departure of Home Depot CEO Robert L. Nardelli. Apparently
he had been doing a bad job and left the company. For doing a bad job he got a
golden parachute of $210 million. For doing a bad job the rest of us would
just get fired. His pay for doing a bad job would keep my family going at
our current life style for roughly 3500 years.
So, is capitalism failing? I really don't know. But it's my opinion that
capitalism isn't healthy and that if we let it go the way it currently is that
it will eventually fail. Don't get me wrong, I think capitalism is the best
we've got right now. Perhaps the answer is to make slight changes to our
current system? Perhaps we'd want to replace it outright? If so, then with
what? Communism? No way, that's already been tried. The truth is I don't
know what the answer would be or even if there is one. I just know I've seen
my prosperity and the prosperity of those around me stagnate or even diminish
due to what I believe is unchecked greed by our elite.