Balta1701

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:26 AM) No, what I am saying is it may not be the best hire if the top reason is "well he's been around forever, we ought to give him a try" or "he's been passed over six times, maybe we owe him this chance". And no one anywhere has said that about any of the candidates who were passed over. No one has even remotely hinted at that. Everyone has focused on the fact that they were likely better prepared for the job. No one has suggested that a guy is owed a shot because of being passed over...they've suggested that they were owed a shot at least at an interview because they clearly appeared ready for the position.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:18 AM) Except they didn't. True. The S&P went from 800 to ~1500. And CEO pay went up by less than a factor of 2.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:13 AM) Because there are stupid owners, other owners have to be stupid. Yes. Or have their franchises lose money, sold, and moved to another city.

Fine...95-2001, CEO salaries went from about 100-1 to 300-1, increasing by a factor of 3, while the S&P went up by a factor of 3.1 (450-1400). While in the following "Boom", the S&P doubled and CEO pay ratios again doubled. Therefore, Sarb-Ox has had a positive impact and limited the growth of CEO pay when you use fully consistent dates and go from the start of the S&P boom to the peak of the S&P boom. At worst, there's nothing here from Sarbanes Oxley. It didn't help.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:08 AM) And it almost tripled during the time that salaries doubled before SOX. 95-2001, the S&P nearly tripled, and CEO salaries relative to average employees nearly tripled.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:06 AM) Kenny? Cooper? If we are talking about journalists in general, as it appears you did, how does a journalist become enough of an expert to challenge someone on every subject under the sun? Imagine some journalist challenging you about geology. Now imagine the same journalist interviewing another geologist about what you said. Which is better? Which will be more beneficial to the audience? If they're doing a stellar job...both. That would mean they actually know the issue well enough to ask me about it...and that they actually know the people who disagree on whatever subject well enough to ask them for an alternate opinion.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:05 AM) And guess what, those stupid contracts will probably preclude them from signing their own stars. The owners need protection from themselves. Because the system is set up where they have no choice but to hand out stupid money. Lose Perkins or Green for nothing (Both were FA's I believe), Durant and Westbrook's team gets weaker with no high draft pick available to replace what was lost. Durant and Westbrook start realizing they can't win there because their team won't spend enough to try to win (because they're saving their money to pay Durant and Westbrook). Durant has a fine career in Los Angeles.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:03 AM) The only thing that slowed the acceleration down was the Clinton Recession. After that it exploded without the stock market explosion that the late 90's saw. The S&P 500 went up from a low around ~800 to ~1475 during the "Bush boom", nearly a factor of 2. CEO pay ratios went up by ~ a factor of 2.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:01 AM) Actually the quality journalist would find an expert who could confirm or refute the story not interject themselves into the story by challenging. How does one find an "Expert who can confirm or refute" a he-said, he said story?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 11:00 AM) And yet, there they are in the conference finals anyway. After signing Kendrick Perkins to....a stupid contract. And trading away Jeff Green so they woudln't have to....sign him to a stupid contract.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:53 AM) So salaries double in three years, versus the 7 it took prior, and you don't see it as different? If you look at the previous boom, 1996-1999, they tripled in 3 years. So no, I don't see it as different when the next boom sees a doubling in 3 years, I see Sarb-Ox as basically having failed completely to change a long term trend. If anything, the fact that CEO Pay is at the same point as it was in 2001 might say that Sarb-Ox actually worked...the exponential increase trend has stopped and it has just sat "Flat" for 10 years. I won't say that, but that's closer to the data than saying that Sarb-Ox made it worse.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:50 AM) You mean the OKC Thunder who made it to the conference finals right? And not the Orlando Magic who signed Lewis to a massive contract and lost in the first round. Yes, I made my point. My word...the Magic um, Made the NBA finals with Lewis on their roster, while the Seattle Supersonics no longer exist.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:48 AM) You really can't see the acceleration of the last 10 years? Well you probably good if it wasn't missing data. Can't easily find one with 2010-2011 data yet, here's the next version. Sure looks to me like the 2005-2007 "boom" just pushed things back to where they were in 2001. (Note that the only image I could easily find has switched bases and is here normalizing to minimum wage rather than average salary...same story, just different basis)

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:45 AM) Hey how are those Seattle Sonics doing anyway after losing Rashard Lewis? Oh that's right. So...the Sonics should have bid enough to keep him, and that would have helped that franchise? I think you pretty much just made my point. Seattle didn't bid high enough to keep their guys around. They didn't offer Lewis, for example, stupid money. The team had 1 winning year in a whole series of doldrums. And now they're in Oklahoma City.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:43 AM) It has been fact busted. The irony of it though is that the effort to fix the problem of CEO salaries tied into Sarbanes Oxley has been the primary driver of the increases salaries. Except for the fact that the explosion did not start with Sarbanes-Oxley, here's a version as of 2005. Clearly that bill in 2002 caused everything that happened from 1980-2001. Link

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:41 AM) 475:1? I highly doubt that number. You are telling me that at an average company in the US, if the average worker makes say 50k, that the CEO makes $23,750,000? Not a chance. The number of CEO's who make that kind of money can be counted on one hand. The rest are below that, in most cases way, way below that, by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. If you are going to use stats to make your case, at least try to make them believable. Part of the problem is that you assumed the typical worker makes $50k. That number might be a little off depending on the year you pick.

Anyway...a more serious answer is "None of them contradict those, because it's really hard to contradict a fact without being unfactual." The other things that show up on the signs commonly are requests to end specific wall street abuses and to end specific results of this inequality.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:29 AM) Except he isn't. The problem is stupid owners handing out stupid contracts. There's more to it than that though...the problem is that failing to hand out stupid contracts is penalized with losing teams and losing key players to free agency. If you don't hand out stupid contracts to Shaq, Lebron walks. If you don't hand out stupid contracts to Boozer, you waste Rose's years and maybe he walks after being tired of the 6th seed. If you don't hand out stupid contracts to Joe Johnson, he walks and your team falls to 9th and misses the playoffs rather than being 4th. If you don't hand out stupid contract to Richard Lewis, Dwight Howard never reaches the finals and he walks. The system right now punishes owners who don't hand out stupid contracts.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:34 AM) Seriously, now post the 50 others that contradict that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:28 AM) Right. That's their point. Funny, that isn't what the signs at the rally's say.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:25 AM) Stern sure seems to be leading the way, as he has always done. And just like last time...I think he's actually focusing on the right problems. In 1999, he was focusing on the fact that the dynasty that carried the league through the 90's (and the 2 pole system from the 80's) was ending, and so revenue growth was going to slow. Now, the NBA is transitioning to an environment where the TV and outside revenue is going to become of increasing importance, while ticket sales will drop in importance. For that environment...the more games you have that are competitive, the more you have people tuning in.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:22 AM) Stern's hands are tied. There's a select-few owners who are willing to crush the NBA because their slice of profits isn't big enough. Really, that's what you take out of all this?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:20 AM) He presents Guillen's side as Guillen sees it. And a quality journalist would consider it his or her job to challenge the viewpoint of the person being interviewed to see if they can defend that viewpoint.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 19, 2011 -> 10:11 AM) that's funny, because the movement is called occupywallstreet. The average NYC Financial Sector worker salary in 2010 was $361,330. (Pointing out that this is an "Average" and many people make less than that number makes the point stronger, btw.)