Comments for Thomas Friedman, Bard of the 1 Percent, Reports on the Problem of Incompetent CEOs at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 23 out of 20 comments http://www.cepr.net Fri, 24 May 2013 12:39:24 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12289 One way you're out of touch with reality is that there are no other comments by me...which suggests you're fighting imaginary demons in your head. Another way is your belief that you're not obviously overflowing with bizarre rage and would "love to debate" other people...even as you talk about what they say being "irrelevant" "moronic" "crap." As I say, I sure hope there aren't many others out there like you, or this country is in real trouble. - Tim Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:21:57 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12259 Another irrelevant post by Tim. What exactly is your point. How exactly, am I out of touch with reality ? And no I am not angry when someone spews crap at me, I just laugh because most times there is no debate, just moronic posts like yours. Tell me how I am wrong, love to debate it. Most here don't debate they just roll on with themes and theories that have no basis in the real world. - JohnG Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:04:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12242 ...most business owners aren't as out of touch with reality and as weirdly angry as JohnG. Certainly I hope he's an outlier, or this country really is doomed. - Tim Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:48:07 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12226 Hey cackalacka, You confirmed my point exactly - you never have created a job in your life. Your hard earned wages ? Government job I presume, or tenured professor teaching in a building that a capitalist donated. Yes I am publicly traded, and my investors continue to invest their hard earned money with me in my next secondary that is pending. You wouldn't like my stock because you won't get it in your mutual fund.......... Your right, I don't spend hours writing my blogs but the facts are the same. But then again, the facts are never in the way of the intellectual crowd with the big themes and little results. - JohnG Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:01:48 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12225 Hey Bo, not sure how you got that I was whining about my employees. Guess you missed the equity piece and the fact that we interviewed another person today that is a referral from a current employee. What I love is the fact that some clowns on here voted my post down. They can't handle the truth. Would love to meet these fools in the real world, oh that's right I spoke with 3 of them today at the SEC. Talk about Stupid !!! So we wonder why college grads can't get jobs, let's see - Dean and the majority of the people on this blog have probably not interviewed anyone for a job in the last 3 years. But they know everything - have all the answers. Well I have interviewed over 200 people in the last 3 years and most of the young people have no common sense. The entitled generation is in trouble. - JohnG Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:53:12 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12215 Hey, JohnG, as one business owner to another...we work the long hours and give up vacations because it's our investment at risk. That's why we get the bigger bucks, so stop whining. If you think you can succeed without your employees, go do it. And to Caterpillar's Oberhelman...public schools were established to make good citizens of us (see Adams, John), not skilled employees. Train your own people ya cheapskate! That's how I get just exactly the high-quality product that helps me out-compete the rest. - Bo Regard Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:58:18 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12207 JohnG, apparently you didn't read the article. The thrust is to raise wages to attract skilled workers and to highlight Bobo/Mustache's penchant for waving a red cape of nonsense when the solution is quite clearly in front of the hack/CEO's eyes. Please let us know if your company is publicly traded. There are those of us who take are hard-earned wages to invest/save, and I, for one, would be reluctant to invest in a company run by someone so obtuse. - cackalacka Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:42:07 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12182 I am a CEO of a 25 person firm where I have given equity to every single person. I signed personally for a loan recently and am at risk. I work 80 hours a week and no vacation thru this recession. I paid my way thru college at night and spent the time and money to get my MBA, while much of the people working for me enjoyed their 40-50 hours a week, nights off with their family and friends, playing on softball teams, etc.. Let me get this straight - you want to cap my annual compensation ?????? You want me to pay even higher taxes so others can go to college for free ??? (OWS - BooHoo I have student loans) Spoken like a true Hope & Changer who has probably NEVER created a job for anyone in their entire life. - JohnG Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:52:00 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12162 ooooh good one- hit them right between the eyes. This is not about training its about wages. And not only wages but also productivity. If you have higher productively you can pay higher wages. If you can't hire the 5th person for 100K then better get rid of two, and hire one that can get the job done for 200K! The old saying "you can pay them whatever you want, just not more! Manufacturing 101! - scott moore Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:17:03 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12161 This is such a straw man. You can't tell me there aren't laid off people with factory experience who could be trained, relatively easily, to fill these positions. I call BS. And second, 50 jobs are an ATOM in the bucket. You can't go nuts retraining thousands of people for a potential 50 jobs. Employers have a right to expect basic math and reading skills, but need to assume they will train for their own needs and not, like those welfare people they hate, wait for the government to help them. - Watt DeFark Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:39:56 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12151 I largely agree, but if the company has six technician positions and five are filled with employees making $100k, the company cannot offer $200k to fill the remaining spot without creating dissent among the other technicians. - Ian W Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:48:50 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12146 Gary, Isn't there some program called GeorgiaWorks where the state government is paying the wages of workers so that workers may be trained and eventually land gainful employment at the participating sites. I believe these are not high skill jobs nor do that many of the workers end up with full time employment. It acts mainly as a cheap source of temp employees. Obama wants to scale it up! - Kat Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:15:14 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12145 How long do you think it will be before Friedman supports or proposes the idea that the government should match (or some portion of the wages paid) the employer wages in order to attract the needed employees. Obviously, this is the perfect solution because it provides further welfare for the 1% behind the guise of lowering unemployment. It does have a small drawback in that it increases the deficit but that can be handled by cutting unemployment benefits. More government welfare for the 1% is always the perfect solution. - gary fitz Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:26:31 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12144 "After referring to David Brooks as the "Bard of the 1 Percent," I was assaulted with a barrage of threatening letters and phone calls..." Maybe they could team up like Simon and Garfunkel or Flight of the Concords? - Peter K. Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:45:16 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12143 Rahm and Tom are on to something. There is indeed a skill shortage -- a shortage of trained CEOs who will work for reasonable pay. Here's the solution: cap weekly CEO pay at the equivalent of the median annual income per earner -- say about $33,000 a week. CEOs could pay themselves as much per hour as they felt they were worth but they would have to stop working (or stop get paid) as soon as they reached the cap. For example, Lloyd Blankfein could work (for pay) 15 minutes a week, max. - Sandwichman Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:26:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12141 I think most of the "shortage" is self inflicted. Most companies have an overblown HR department that has nothing to do but produce inflated job position qualifications. If the supervisors could do the selections and interviewing there would be more workers. MOST JOBS DON'T NEED A COLLEGE DEGREE AT ALL. HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU LEARNED DID YOU ACTUALLY USE AT YOUR FIRST JOB?????? - jumpinjezebel Sun, 16 Oct 2011 08:33:58 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12139 izzatzo--the sophomore strikes again! - bmz Sun, 16 Oct 2011 06:18:26 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12138 The old ruse journalists used was that one worker may make two or three times the wage of other workers. The journalist would then abandon the who, what, when, where and why of good journalism and fail to report a real example of someone earning the much superior wage. [i]Did you ever interview anyone making $100,000 per year repairing heavy equipment?[/i] - MarkJ Sun, 16 Oct 2011 06:15:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12137 "Doug Oberhelman, the C.E.O. of Caterpillar, which is based in Illinois, was quoted in Crain’s Chicago Business on Sept. 13 as saying: 'We cannot find qualified hourly production people, and, for that matter, many technical, engineering service technicians, and even welders, and it is hurting our manufacturing base in the United States. The education system in the United States basically has failed them, and we have to retrain every person we hire.'" What a sad failure of education that it didn't [u]train[/u] young people to fit seamlessly into Caterpillar Tractor's manufacturing line vacancies. How shortsighted of our teachers and curriculum planners not to have foreseen the type of skills Caterpillar would need twenty years down the road. And doesn't he really mean "The education system in the United States basically has failed [b]us[/b]...."? - diesel Sun, 16 Oct 2011 06:14:02 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-bard-of-the-1-percent-reports-on-the-problem-of-incompetent-ceos#comment-12136 [quote]If they offered high enough wages people would leave competitors to work for their companies.[/quote] Exactly. Any economist knows how competition works to drive resources to their highest valued use. That's why the structural skill shortage is a myth, the same reason there's no hundred dollar bills on the sidewalk - those workers already have jobs because they're getting paid what they're worth. However Baker is right for the wrong reason. If those workers get even higher wages from a competing firm which amounts to economic rent commanded in a manufactured shortage, it also leaves the prior employer in the same structural unemployment trap of labor markets that cannot clear in the aggregate. Friedman is correct. A broken education system is cranking out graduates who can't match a pay grade above the skills necessary to program a cell phone who nevertheless manage to break into the CEO market. The only solution is Baker's proposal to Raid Ration skilled labor under Communist Competition across all firms designed to allocate a fixed stock of labor to the highest bidders. Stupid liberals. - izzatzo Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:18:26 +0100