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Breaking: Swedish industrial wages to be cut by up to 20 %! | 50 comments (50 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Meh (none / 0)
No, that management are grossly overpaid is precisely the issue. The management is effectively a class of "super duper equity holders" in that they get all the upside when things are good, and - so far - none of the downside when things go sour.

The justification, in the capitalist system, for downturns is precisely that it forces overpaid and underproductive parts of the political economy - and these days, the most obviously underproductive and overpaid part of the political economy is the management class - to take a haircut. If this haircut fails to materialise, then capitalism isn't working as advertised.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Mar 5th, 2009 at 04:17:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Additionally, (none / 0)
I am not aware of any law of physics that says that a 20 % reduction in output must be accompanied by a 20 % reduction in payroll. Since there is unemployment, that's purely a distributional question: Who gets to take the haircut. So far, it's workers and - to some extent - equity holders. Management has been exempt, as have bondholders.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Mar 5th, 2009 at 04:21:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Breaking: Swedish industrial wages to be cut by up to 20 %! | 50 comments (50 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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