Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for January 22, 2011

The American reality!

bull’s eye.

Fine art(work) in the third panel.

Republican philosophy/mentality

Man, that’s a lot of brandy in that snifter. Go for it dude…

Where I work the average salary is about 11 dollars and hour even after 15 years….sales are down so management is cutting costs by reducing the average workers salary noticeably…by about 3 days a month….ain’t it great….oh yes, the CEO still lives in the multi-million dollar mansion….now I can see how they built those pyramids so cheaply.

Pouncing tiger, keep the political stereotypes out of it, please? That is all that what you said is, a stereotype, and not necessarily that accurate of one.

cutiepie thank you for taking the initiative. We have already had tons of political rhetoric on this particular comic so a break is welcome. (And for the record, I am Republican.)

It doesn’t matter whether the CEO is Democratic or Republican; the thought process is the same as in the strip. They aren’t giving up their easily won gains.

Like the Wizard of Id today, the Repubs say Let them eat cake.

I’ve been on both ends of the stick, both labor and management (self-employed most of my working life)…I found that you get more out of your workers if you give them a good wage and treat them like friends instead of trying to starve a profit out of them. By the way, the wage earners feel the same way.

Was looking at a study from 2007. Seems interesting:

“The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options. It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to research by United for a Fair Economy. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe.”

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

If a CEO is truly successful in directing his company to greater success and higher profits, I do not begrudge him a nickle. However, I really wish that it were illegal for anyone to get a bonus for laying people off or cutting wages.

I’m with Cutipie, this is a comic strip. Way to go Wiley, you are the greatest.

How about educating people about the change of manufacturing areas and how we soon will have NO WORK and NO MONEY to buy anything as the whole caboodle has been transferred to India and China. Better get used to living as Chinese and Indians did folks, before they became the first world countries and we the third world!! The sooner people realise that the sooner they might react.

Pay the workers what they deserve! Stop holding down wages! French Revolution, anyone?

As I sharpen my conservative horns and groom my conservative forked tail, I wonder what remedy the liberals would offer. Progressive income tax? Got it. Capital gains tax? Got it. Inheritance tax? Got it.

There is no denying that there is some obscene money being paid to some CEO’s, but what is your remedy? Communism and socialism have been spectacular failures everywhere they have been implemented, so what’s next? Mobs with pitchforks and torches?

Our system of government is the worst there is, except for all the others.

The president of my (private) company has a huge house, yacht, multiple fancy cars. He founded the company almost 30 years ago and built it up to over 100 employees; his children are groomed to replace him, and even though I don’t work at the main site, if he sees me there he will stop and greet me by name.

He’s earned what he’s got, and I can’t work up much indignation while I try to squeeze every penny I can out of him.

Wow! Listen to all the Republicans whine. I guess the truth hurts. And just for the record, I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Furthermore, I’d like to point out to those that don’t get or don’t want to get (i.e. Repulicans) the fact that this comic strip is all about poking politics in the eye. It must just be too subtle for you. lol

Two ideas I’m hearing from Republican commentators (and some politicians) today;

The minimum wage is unconstitutional. It is outrageous that there exists a 0% tax bracket for the poor. So that’s the Republican plan; If you’re a gazillionaire, it’s tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. If you make minimum wage, you get a tax increase and a pay cut. And yet they have the nerve to say the poor are waging class warfare on the rich.

Hum - It appears to me that all the liberals are whining. I did see some interesting statistics the other day. Most rich republicans are CEOs. Most rich Democrats are Lawyers. I think that says a lot. I know which of the two generate more jobs.

I have worked for CEOs that built their own company from the ground up, they deserve every penny. I have also worked for CEOs that worked or weaseled there way into the position, they are not worth bleeep.

Great strip!

It’s a mentality that needs to be changed. Corporate America has come to believe that upper management deserves such obscene compensation. A more equitable distribution between the people guiding the company and the people actually doing to productive work would benefit everyone and, I think, makes for a much healthier company and work environment. A bleeep shame the financial wizards, after proving gross incompetence (at the lesst), are still busily making their fortunes playing guessing games with our money.

“Darkeforce said, about 6 hours ago

@CutiePie; neither is it necessarily an inaccurate stereotype, either. This is the summation of the conservative mentality; a complete and utter lack of sympathy for their fellow man; they need to indulge their greed, even as their fellow man suffers.”

Darkforce, I disagree wholeheartedly with you. MOST of the people with whom I served in the miltary were and are conservative. Most of the people who I’ve served with in a volunteer fire department were conservatives. Most of the people who donate money and time in churches I’ve been to are conservatives. You’re taking SOME people from the less than 1% of the top wage earners in the US and painting all conservatives boradlywith that tiny brush. It’s an ignorant stereotype which applies to a miniscule portion of the conservatives in the US. You may as well say that all Blacks are lazy, or that women are incapable of doing the same work as their male counterparts. It’s a tired image that doesn’t represent the reality of most conservatives. I’d be just as wrong to call all progressives “tree-hugging communist traitors, and anti-capitalists.” It’s simply not true, no matter how badly you want it to be.

As hard as we work to keep our business going, I wouldn’t mind being one of those CEOs.

In a free market a competing company would pay management its real worth and undercut the company in the comic. In our reality this company pays off lobbyists to get government advantage from licensing laws, tariffs and regulations. Without competition in product as well as the job market a financial imbalance develops. As usual the problem would be solved with less government.

FWIW – we don’t have capitalism – we have privatized profits and socialized losses … the rich get richer, and the rest of us get the bill. Unrestrained capitalism is just as corrupt an economic system as any other economic system. We’re just supposed to be happier about it because in theory, we all have a chance to be CEO. Really? Really …

Wah Waah Wahahahahahah

Hey, anybody in Washington paying attention? Ram Panel 2 down Wall Street’s collective throats, and you would absolutely get the results described in Panel 2, plus Wall Street CEOs would no longer be viewed as Fat Cats who make Ebenezer Scrooge look like Mother Teresa.

Poor Republicans, can’t take the heat, the luke warm bath of reality, when wrong, and wrong and soon to be wrong again.

Sorry, thirdguy, I don’t begrudge him anything about money either.

I merely point out that he has crushed the US economy by moving jobs overseas, not to improve products (they usually get shoddier and are made by unqualified personnel) But to fatten his own wallet. Overseas means no insurance costs, no retirement costs and no complaints by Indian or Chinese workers because they know they will either not even have that job or will be used for spare parts in the criminal human organ industry.

If it were merely about profit, I would not be surprised since it’s a capitalist economy and by definition greed incarnate. But they have made sure to wipe out any possible level playing field for anyone else getting rich anew by destroying the Real Estate and Stock markets and making any new business nearly impossible with insane insurance and government regulations. (Bought by rich lobbyists.) Those were the three main ways you got rich in this country. Meanwhile, inflation and refusals by INCs to pay their workers adjusted incomes, has eaten away any real buying power.

You may like or not like Lou Dobbs, but he was right: There is a war on the middle class, led by CEO’s using cheap foreign workers in and out of this country. The hilarious (if you can still laugh) part is that the Mexican Invasion will end up destroying the middle class and the new Mexican force that came here to get rich will find itself working for the same lousy wages they left home to escape.

I begrudge him his life without a conscience.

The most profitable import we have, Ghost. And Remington is doing it’s best to destroy it’s union labor.

There is no such thing as Scrooge McDuck’s money bin,allmost all those huge salaries are working for their owners,in banks or buying equipment or being lent for mortgages,the money they spend on themselves for million dollar homes or a yacht looks really good if you’re a fancy house or boat builder.

Well, another way to make ridiculous money would be to coach football at the University of Michigan….Right, Rich Rod???

right on, WIley!

Congrats America…..you reap what you sew…in this case all the years of not paying attention and then swallowing all the conservative BS and voting against your own self interest….

You b–ch about union labor and hourly workers and their meager benefits, yet allow unbidled Wall St to run amuck and still no one INSISTS anything be done….we won’t even touch on the topic of useless wars and their expense, now will we……

but, lets dismantle what little health care an other social services we now have….

The likes of S Palin is a real joke..like a dog chasing a car….she catches the election….then what? I’m all for it…won’t hurt me any more….Let’s elect those Tea partiers….watch out what you wish for…….heh, heh, heh

I’ve known folks who built businesses, and became wealthy. The real key to success with their employees and investors was “share the wealth”. Today’s “conservative” corporate culture is “all for one, and that is ME!” Beck claims “libs” want people in corrals like stupid cattle-to “protect them”. What he ignores, as do those “cows”, is that corporations send them out free range to fatten them cheaply, then lock them in economic corrals just prior to slaughter for the benefit of the CEO “ranchers”. The CEOs sit in the drawing room smoking cigars, so they don’t catch a whiff of the slaughter.

There is nothing more stupid than a poor Republican.

The term isn’t “absurdly filthy rich”, it’s “obscenely filthy rich”…

Wiley,

If CEOs made only 50 times more than their workers, instead of 500 times more, “employment and commerce would rise, [and] the economy would be healthy ….”

Is that true in the real world, or only in the cartoon world? If so, I would be pleased to know where you learned it. Would you be kind enough to direct my attention to a source where I might learn it too?

Thanks, An Iconoclast

political opinion does not equal political fact. going by factual accuracy the republican have a very large factual advantage.

It’s absurd to get incensed about some CEO making umpty-ump times more than the guy sweeping the floor. Just what IS the ideal ratio handed down from Olympus or Mt. Zion or wherever? 200? 100? 20? No such number exists. It’s always been whatever the market will bear, and that’s true for both ends of the scale.

More important, behind all the pay-scale hand-wringing is a Leftist hatred for free markets and a childish wish that everyone should be equal. The result throughout history has been equalized poverty—except, of course, for the nobles, dictators, commissars, and bureaucrats running the system, but nobody ever calculates how much more they make than the serfs.

Wiley,

If CEOs made only 50 times more than their workers, instead of 500 times more, “employment and commerce would rise, [and] the economy would be healthy ….”

Is that true in the real world, or only in the cartoon world? If so, I would be pleased to know where you learned it. Would you be kind enough to direct my attention to a source where I might learn it too?

Thanks, An Iconoclast

I’m new to this comment-posting stuff. I thought I had posted a comment (twice), but it doesn’t seem to show up. Maybe I pushed the wrong button(s). Is there something else I should know?

rails, tar, feathers, torches, pitchforks

@ Richard Lake…… It is sooo true that I have to laugh.

Thank you - terrific comic strip today! Absolute best way to get point across.

@ pschearer it’s all about greed. There are people on the Right who are smart, hard workers and aspire to attain the American dream of prosperity by leading a company and becoming wealthy themselves. Then there are people on the Left who want it all for free by doing nothing. The problem is, there are more lazy people on the Left and enough of them vote. Your voice and mine are lost among the people envious of those hard workers.

This is a false quote, but the meaning rings true: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.”

As an aside, CEOs make little, in proportion to the companies they run. However, they are an easy scapegoat for politicians who want to distract the public while they spend the people’s money.

You can go to the grave complaining about those who’ve got more than you do, or you can make yourself so knowledgeable and skillful that big companies will want you to work for them. How do you think most corporate execs got that way?

Love it, Wiley. Well done!

Point 1: Political argument over the content of a COMIC STRIP is specious at best. Point 2: Stereotyping any party based on the actions of the VERY Vocal Minority of those parties (NON RACIAL, So don’t even start) is not thinking logically. Point 3: This is, first and formost, a COMIC STRIP. Look and leave. If you don’t like it, ignore it. Stop causing trouble with political and personal stereotypes.

Jaroca2 – So true!

Wiley: BRILLIANT!!!! IMHO your best social commentary strip to date… but then it’s my hot-button issue.

I liked jcmckain’s comments about capitalism, well said, sir.

And to the person who claimed that “socialism failed”… hello?!?! Seriously?! I guess all those Scandinavian countries who have such high happiness quotients and great social services and more equal incomes are big failures, huh?! Really, try a little research before you make silly claims like that. Real democratic socialism would probably even make you feel wealthier. Foolish, foolish people…

Its like communsium it looked good on paper and in a pure form it woulda worked but all humans have greed in one form or another so as long as people have greed nothing will work right

What we need is a real and actual Tyler Durden to educate the fat cats that the “talentless, unambitious grunts” who sweep the floors (on minimum wage), take out the trash (on minimum wage) and take orders in the restaurants (at minimum wage and whilst working the other two jobs) are the Space Monkeys that keep the whole show going while they investigate getting 24 carat gold floors installed in their super yacht. “Clean food please” “In that case, sir, may I advise against the lady eating clam chowder?” “No clam chowder, thank you”

Not a big Aerosmith fan but, didn’t Steven Tyler come up with the t-shirt logo “EAT THE RICH”? I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve…

Of course they take responsibility for this amount of money: If the company fails they take a lousy few millions in compensation and the lazy workers loose their job for failing the poor management.

So, for those poor, “absurdly filthy rich” folks, it’s just a rat race for them too? A race to see who’s got the most?

Actually, I like to think of it as the natural tension between those who can get a joke and those who are a joke.