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You do understand that in a true pension plan that the employee has no say in which companay that the pension trustees invest in don't you. The pension plan is the true owners and not the employees. They are only beneficiaries of the plan.
Hmmm... Who elects the union leaders that make those decisions?
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The fact is only the large single investors have any real control over the companies.
Hmmm... And exactly WHO owns the American Business Machine and is making demands for more efficiency and more profits at the expense of jobs and workers' incomes?
"This shift of business ownership from rich people to working people may be the greatest economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. ...So what does all this mean? Well, for starters, it should lead to an end of complaints about the profits of corporations and allegations about 'greedy corporations.' After all, much of that profit now goes toward the current and future retirement incomes of working people. ...working people have bought enough stocks and shares to become bosses of the bosses. And some pension funds have begun making that clear. CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, has led the way in telling Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and boards of directors that they'd better manage effectively or else. And, CEOs and directors listen; after all CalPERS runs the country's biggest pension fund" Business Ownership & Labor Day
Read the entire article, and open your eyes.
Everyone who contributes to or benefits from a 401k, pension fund, mutual fund, annuity, or whole life insurance policy, etc., owns the American Business Machine, en masse. They, not capitalism, are the guilty parties.
Speaking of CalPERS, California state employee pension fund's liability tops $500 billion
Hmmm... Who elects the union leaders that make those decisions?
The biggest US investor is CalPERS. Union.
Actually, reading your post CALPERs is the biggest "pension fund investor". I did not see anything that said they were the biggest investor although they may be.
The fact is that individual members of the union do not vote for board of directors for all of the companies that the plan has in its portfolio. That is done by the administrators of the plan of which the union members have no say. The original cite is just misguided. Even if the union members could be called owners of the company by virtue of the fact that the investment company purchased the stock, they do have any say in the running of the company or of the companies governance.
The study concluded that the state’s unfunded pension liability has topped half a trillion dollars
Uh oh... looks like CalPERS is going to have to insist on even more outsourcing of jobs and lower workers' salaries at the companies they own to increase profits.
From the article:Uh oh... looks like CalPERS is going to have to insist on even more outsourcing of jobs and lower workers' salaries at the companies they own to increase profits.
I am slow, but now I get where you are going. The great disparity of wealth is caused by the unions. HaHa. But your logic is very faulty...well extremely faulty. The reason being is that all investors, following your logic, would be the cause of the disparity, because all investors want to see the value of their stock increase, which means that they want the company to tighten their belt, which leads to lower pay and less jobs. So you see it can't be just unions, it would have to be all investors according your logic.
This is largely GOP piffle. What has happened in the last 50 years is capitalism has been doing what it is supposed to do. That is concentrate capital in fewer hands and doing things with the least capital and effort. This is called economic optimization and the American Business Machine is a job destroying one. In its hayday in the 1960s the American Auto Industry employed more than 3 million workers today it has fewer than 300,000 but it actually makes and sells more cars and trucks! How is this possible? Well you don't need a man to put in a fastner or press a button on a die stamping machine. In fact you don't need him to do a weld or judge whether a metal surface has been milled enough. All these are under the control of robots and computers. A modern American factory is remarkable for its lack of humanity and this is how we compete with China. The only thing cheaper than a Chinese worker is a virtual American worker or an avatar in the form of a computer that needs no wages or health benfits and doesn't try to form a union. So technology is why most of the 3 million men and women who used to be UAW members are no longer UAW members. Technology is even reaching into the white collar world, where there were once vast rooms full of typists, the armies of secretaries and filing clerks, the rooms full of telephone operators, the rooms of skilled draftsmen working on blueprints. This is all gone and along with it thousands of jobs that paid enough for an Ozzie and Harriet life in a modest suburb where there were a car in the driveway 2 kids a dog and a cat. So these people join the ranks of the American surplus labor force. Now we kept the surplus labor pool relatively small by creating service jobs, creating thpusands of fast food joints, locking up a lot of people in prisons to the point we have more people in jail than the Chinese, We have made healthcare our growth industry. We even created one or two new industries like cable TV and the Internet. But in 2011 we now have a Micky Ds on nearly every corner and we have cable even in zombie town and just how many dog walkers, plumber and carpenters do we need? So the unemployment is long lasting and no amount of schooling may lead to a job in the future. So there are now nearly 20 million Americans sitting on there butts unemployed and millions more may join them as America follows its capitalist ideal into the abyss. Now if you want to learn more read the economic writings of a not so unkown economist and political scholar who did most of his work 150 years ago in the British Imperial Library.
We have nothing to lose but our chains of ignorance.
What you describe is not capitalism. Capitalism is simply the allocation of capital by private as opposed to public means.
You are describing crony corporatism. Economic optimization can only happen is government granted and protected corporate charters are modified to reduce liability and risk of the owners ad executives. Plus government needs to grant special tax benefits and "stimulus" to favored companies in order for them to gain power and money.
Handing more power and control to one side of the two headed monster is not gong to change a thing, the privileged elite will still need to be the elite.
I prefer the writings of a not very well known economist from 150 years ago.
Actually, reading your post CALPERs is the biggest "pension fund investor". I did not see anything that said they were the biggest investor although they may be.
Yes, CalPERS is the country's largest investor.
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The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) is the country's largest investor in private equity and venture capital
I am slow, but now I get where you are going. The great disparity of wealth is caused by the unions. HaHa. But your logic is very faulty...well extremely faulty. The reason being is that all investors, following your logic, would be the cause of the disparity, because all investors want to see the value of their stock increase, which means that they want the company to tighten their belt, which leads to lower pay and less jobs. So you see it can't be just unions, it would have to be all investors according your logic.
CalPERS is in fact the country's largest investor. Read my post with the article on how CalPERS tries to call the shots at Apple, with Apple's management trying to fight back.
Not since before the great depression have we had such inequality in wealth distribution. There is a correlation between the disparity and taxes. The lower the taxes the higher the disparity. The greater the taxes the less the disparity and the larger the middle class. Anyone who tells you that taxes on the rich kills the middle class just needs to look at the charts.
CalPERS is in fact the country's largest investor. Read my post with the article on how CalPERS tries to call the shots at Apple, with Apple's management trying to fight back.
I never said that Calpers did not have some control. They can get the right to vote for Board of Directors, if the purchase voting shares. It is the individual union members who do not have a say. I thought that I made that clear.
But again I ask. How does this lead to great wealth disparity?
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