South Africa - The Land of Inequality

[Imploder]

Notice two things, which may not be what the authors wanted to highlight.

 

First, it reports on "compensation" not salary so it would include the enormous wealth created by entrepreneurs via their shareholding in businessesthey founded.

 

Second, notice the large dips in CEO "compensation" at times and compare the steady increase in workers earnings.

 

What would the lines have looked like if workers were to take the risk of the downside for a share of the spoils in the good?

 

I wouldn't call 11% over 40yrs a "Steady Increase". 

[Blackbeard]

I wouldn't call 11% over 40yrs a "Steady Increase". 

Continuous growth over an extended period of time ie. no decreases, would be correctly labelled as a "steady increase". This is particularly noticeable if one has even a cursory glance at the graph in question. 

 

The term further postulates no dramatic fluctuations in compensation.

[Slowbee]

So is asking for a 10% raise reasonable?

 

Or is it unacceptable since we must drive costs down and profitablity up. Shareholders want profit in every way possible and nothing must stand in the way.

[Blackbeard]

So is asking for a 10% raise reasonable?

 

Or is it unacceptable since we must drive costs down and profitablity up. Shareholders want profit in every way possible and nothing must stand in the way.

False premises do not make for reasoned discussions.

[Imploder]

Continuous growth over an extended period of time ie. no decreases, would be correctly labelled as a "steady increase". This is particularly noticeable if one has even a cursory glance at the graph in question. 

 

The term further postulates no dramatic fluctuations in compensation.

 

I think the granularity of the graph is such that you wouldn't see a decrease/fluctuation in the workers compensation, largely because the orders of magnitude of the CEO rise in compensation is so high, just saying.

 

But yes, I concede, the compensation over the last 40 years has increased by 11% for the average worker. 

 

The real question is, do you consider that just and fair? Is it sustainable?

[coppi]

So is asking for a 10% raise reasonable?

 

Or is it unacceptable since we must drive costs down and profitablity up. Shareholders want profit in every way possible and nothing must stand in the way.

It was reasonable when the economy was growing at a decent rate............definitely not now !

If you get 5% or any be very grateful..................actually be grateful that you still have a job !

[Blackbeard]

I think the granularity of the graph is such that you wouldn't see a decrease/fluctuation in the workers compensation, largely because the orders of magnitude of the CEO rise in compensation is so high, just saying.

 

But yes, I concede, the compensation over the last 40 years has increased by 11% for the average worker. 

 

The real question is, do you consider that just and fair? Is it sustainable?

I consider that the graph serves no purpose other than to polarise arguments and to drive a particular agenda. Its parameters are so vague as to be meaningless.

 

What is "just and fair" and what is sustainable is dependent upon each individual business.

Generalising across all businesses in all industries and all localities, while ostensibly only focusing on the most and least compensated, is nonsensical. 

 

To be clear, I have no difficulty with the proposition that a CEO has a demonstrably higher compensation than the least compensated in a company. 

[Goodbadugly]

Percentage graphs are always nice. But we also need a volume graph. In the last 20 years the population of South Africa almost doubled. And that is NOT because the high income groups were trying to fill the earth in 50 years.. The flip side of the coin looks different.

[Blackbeard]

It was reasonable when the economy was growing at a decent rate............definitely not now !

If you get 5% or any be very grateful..................actually be grateful that you still have a job !

 

I know a few executives/owners who currently making great sacrifices to keep the companies afloat solely to keep people employed.

 

A few companies have elected not to retrench workers despite clear indications to do so.

 

But that doesn't fit the political narrative of worker exploitation.

[Eldron]

There's so much to talk about in this graph. I'm not even sure where to begin.

 

Graphs (and stats) are awesome. They get people all hot and bothered without giving any context whatsoever.

 

If "workers" got an 11% increase in 30 odd years that wasn't inflation linked in South Africa then their real salaries would have dropped massively.

 

An 11% increase here in Denmark would put you in the top 0.0005% of salary increasers!

 

t least quote the story so we can see the figures behind the graph - without it the graph is all but meaningless.

[Imploder]

Graphs (and stats) are awesome. They get people all hot and bothered without giving any context whatsoever.

 

If "workers" got an 11% increase in 30 odd years that wasn't inflation linked in South Africa then their real salaries would have dropped massively.

 

An 11% increase here in Denmark would put you in the top 0.0005% of salary increasers!

 

t least quote the story so we can see the figures behind the graph - without it the graph is all but meaningless.

 

The full article is here:

 

https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-in-2017/

 

The point being made is that we are in an era of obscene inequality where 1% of the worlds population owns 50% of the worlds wealth. And it's in this environment in which we find people like DT rising to the pinnacle of leadership; countries like SA teetering on a knife-edge; as land expropriation and other policies to address past injustices threaten our economic and social stability. Syria, Yemen, environmental catastrophe in India.

 

All of this is connected.

[Paddaman]

The full article is here:

 

https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-in-2017/

 

The point being made is that we are in an era of obscene inequality where 1% of the worlds population owns 50% of the worlds wealth. And it's in this environment in which we find people like DT rising to the pinnacle of leadership; countries like SA teetering on a knife-edge; as land expropriation and other policies to address past injustices threaten our economic and social stability. Syria, Yemen, environmental catastrophe in India.

 

All of this is connected.

The reality is the world has always been a place of obscene inequality.  Some would argue that inequality is actually getting less and not more.

 

If one considers that a century ago, running water, electricity, medical care, education ext were not universally available or seen as universally necessary by the ruling elites , we have actually progress really far.  (1918 was the end of WW1, even giving women the vote was seen as a really bad idea)  In 1917 one of the last really bad feudal system was replaced with the first really bad communist system in Russia. In China that transition had to wait until the 1940's)

 

We must not confuse knowledge of  inequality with the level of actual inequality that exists.  It is a easy trick to throw up a straw man argument married to the recency effect to mobilise outrage at perceived growing inequality.

[Goodbadugly]

I see this inequality in South Africa as one of those freakonomics principles.

Labor laws, minimum wages. So the "rich" invent/buy machines to do the jobs of people. They are not in the humanitarian business, they are there to thrive.

Democracy is a numbers game. And the poor have a lot of kids. Poor kids.

In South Africa the poor are paid to have kids. Read "grants"

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/opinion/the-miracle-that-wasnt.html

Don't we experience the crime wave New York had 30 years ago?

[Eldron]

The full article is here:

 

https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-in-2017/

 

The point being made is that we are in an era of obscene inequality where 1% of the worlds population owns 50% of the worlds wealth. And it's in this environment in which we find people like DT rising to the pinnacle of leadership; countries like SA teetering on a knife-edge; as land expropriation and other policies to address past injustices threaten our economic and social stability. Syria, Yemen, environmental catastrophe in India.

 

All of this is connected.

 

I agree and disagree....

 

The agreeing part: Living in Denmark means I can see the benefit of a GDP per capita with a very small range. There is a huge middle class here with a few mega wealthy individuals. That's awesome.

 

The disagree part:

Denmark has GDP per capita of R750,000 so of course Denmark is a happpy place. The global GDP per capita is R250,000. That is not so happy.

 

Summary: The problem is partly the distribution of the wealth but the bigger problem is the small total wealth available. 

 

Edit: The R250,000 global gdp per capita was from Wikipedia - the world bank reckons it was R156,000 in 2017 - hopelessly too little to make everyone in the world happy.

 

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

[coppi]

I agree and disagree....

 

The agreeing part: Living in Denmark means I can see the benefit of a GDP per capita with a very small range. There is a huge middle class here with a few mega wealthy individuals. That's awesome.

 

The disagree part:

Denmark has GDP per capita of R750,000 so of course Denmark is a happpy place. The global GDP per capita is R250,000. That is not so happy.

 

Summary: The problem is partly the distribution of the wealth but the bigger problem is the small total wealth available. 

 

Edit: The R250,000 global gdp per capita was from Wikipedia - the world bank reckons it was R156,000 in 2017 - hopelessly too little to make everyone in the world happy.

 

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

Huge difference here :

Denmark population approx. 5.7 mil - with very good education

ZA population approx 57 mil - with very poor to no education for 3/4 of the population

[Johan_Kleynhans]

At our Company without fail our hourly paid workers had a bigger % yearly increase as compared to the salaried staff (monthly paid) over the last 15 years. Last 2 years the hourly paids still got inflation plus increases but salaried got zero.

 

So the stats are clearly not applicable to everybody.

 

As long as the focus is to pull those who have down to the level to those who dont have this country is doomed to stay worlds apart.

 

Salaries are linked to the risk involved and the experience as well as the position. Companies are much bigger as compared to 20 years ago in most instances.

 

Making decisions about Billions of Rand versus a general labour person with very little skills required can never be the same and should never be the same in terms of salaries.

 

Sometimes it is also about priorities. I travel to office past a a very poor area. Just about every house has a dish. How do they afford it to have DSTV?