In a 649 word editorial the editors of the New York Times have only these as suggestions for actions the federal government could take to improve U. S. economic growth:
The economy, in short, is still wounded, and the route to recovery runs through government. Direct policies could raise wages in the near term, including the minimum wage. Policies can also change norms that keep wages depressed. Currently, for example, corporate executives are fighting to delay a new rule under the Dodd-Frank law to require companies to disclose the ratio of a chief executive’s pay to the median pay of the company’s employees. The information could expose indefensible disparities and lead to higher employee pay. Still other policies could set the stage for healthy growth in the longer term, including immigration reform, infrastructure spending and education initiatives.
and unless I’m mistaken not one of those would do much to improve economic growth. Pretty clearly they’re so intent on divvying up a shrinking income they have no ideas on how to increase it.
I’ll present several. Reduce the amount of money spent on roads and bridges. Increase the amount spent on energy and communications infrastructure. More mass engineering projects. The federal government’s history with those has been pretty successful and they inevitably prepare the way for future economic growth.
Apparently they can’t do math. If the company is of largish or more size, they won’t increase the workers pay, but reduce the CEO’s pay – and probably pay him in some other fashion.
Imagine a company with 10,001 workers. The median & mean pay (did they mean median or mean?) of the workers who aren’t the CEO is $50,000. (And we’ll ignore benefits costs, FICA paid by employer & everything else pertinent.)
So the payroll is $50,000 x 10,000 = $500,000,000.
Let’s say the CEO makes 100x the median & mean income, $5,000,000. (Pulling numbers out of my hat for explanatory purposes.)
Now the company COULD halve that ratio by doubling the workers pay, and doubling their payroll. Or they could halve the CEO’s pay. One option costs the company a cool half billion per anum, the other saves it $2.5 million – assuming they don’t find another way to pay the CEO. Now which sounds more realistic?
That’s an extreme example but it does illustrate the size of the problem.
Oh, and if the CEO gives up a million and it gets redistributed to all the other workers, they’ll all get an extra $100 per anum. Yay! And now the CEO is only making about 80x the median, and not a whole lot has changed.
If they do mean median, it gets dumber. Not that hard to concoct a scenario where the bottom half of workers get substantial pay raises (not hard to double their pay) but the ratio of median pay to CEO pay doesn’t change at all.
Did any of them pass a mathematics course in college? Or high school?
My suspicion would be that very few ever took a math class after high school trig (is that still a required subject?).
I have no idea if trig is still required. My knowledge is 30 years (!!) out of date.
And I see today that 10,000,000 or 18,000,000 foreign workers (depending on how you count some of them) have been added to the US economy since Obama’s inauguration. Gee, I wonder if that’s having an impact?
Recovery summer. Heard yet more news about this “good” economy we’ve got. Good chance that our income will drop to $0 by the end of March. Out-fucking-standing job.
Ellipses, sorry to hear your troubles might be compounded.
Trig doesn’t appear to be a stand-alone class anymore.
When I was in high school this was our honors math program:
Year 1 Algebra
Year 2 1 semester geometry, 1 semester trig
Year 3 Calculus I
Year 4 Calculus II
PD, with this economy its hardly a surprise. Despite all the “rah-rah UE-3 is falling!”, as well as the record corporate profits talk, things are still hard in most businesses.
It looks like the honors track at my daughter’s high school is this:
1. Geometry
2. Pre-Calc
3. Calc
4. Calc II
I cannot remember the progression at my high school, but trig was definitely a one semester course. But I don’t think it matched with geometry because I remember geometry as being at the downtown high school campus and trig at the uptown campus. But my memory ain’t what it used to be.
@PD Shaw
I believe Pre-Calc is Trig. At my stepson’s high school, I kept asking about Trigonometry, and they kept looking at me like I had lost my mind. Finally, one of them admitted that they do not call it Trig anymore, but I am still not sure why.
At my son’s school it it is Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, then Calculus at a local university or statistics if they choose.
As to the general topic I remain fairly skeptical about the government’s ability to create sustainable jobs in the short to medium run. Investments in infrastructure, education, health care, etc take a while to provide returns.
Steve
FWIW
The math sequence at my daughters high school – traditional college prep – is the same as Dave’s. I’m speaking with counselor to allow statistics instead of Calc II as she is far more likely to benefit from stats. However, college admissions is still stuck in calculus mode.
Anyone see the ISM this AM?
My daughter’s high school’s middle-brow math sequence is:
Algebra I
Geometry
Algebra II
College Algebra/Trigonometry
So, there is trig, but it’s part of non-Calc curriculum.
Drew, just looked at the NY ISM after reading your comment. Yikes!
And gas prices jumped 20¢ overnight. Goodbye sub-$2 gasoline!