Top Ten Highe$t Paid CEO's in USA

[Mitch Cronin]

From: http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Top-ten-highest-paid-American-CEOs

"According to Forbes, the annual pay for this list of CEOs is a combination of salary, bonus, and stock gains."

10- $33.76 million: David E. I. Pyott, chairman, president, and CEO of Allergan

9- 37.9 million: John T. Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems Inc.

8- $38.9 million: James T. Hackett, chairman, president, and CEO of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.

7- $42.7 million: Dr. John C. Martin, chairman and CEO of Gilead Sciences Inc.

6- $43 million: Ralph Lauren, designer, chairman, and CEO of Polo Ralph Lauren

5- $49.5 million: Lewis Frankfort, CEO of Coach

4- $51.5 million: George Paz, CEO of Express Scripts

3- $53.3 million: Robert A. Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Co.

2- $65.8 million: Edward Mueller, Qwest chairman and CEO.

1- $102 million: Stephen J. Hemsley, UnitedHealth Group Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer.

[Mitch Cronin]

Not sure of your point Mitch

Yes, I know. You rarely are. In this case it's because your measures of what's good for us all, are based on what you've been fed all your life, and I haven't been eating at that table.

That's a half a billion dollars spent on ten people Malcolm. The lowest of those is collecting about $13,000 per hour. If your rightometer doesn't red flag that little detail (while the ads come on the telly about how "as little as 5 cents a day" can help feed needy children), then you'll never be sure of my point.

Collectively, globally, we've allowed cheats, thieves, morally deficient, and sometimes psychopathic hoarders to structure and rule our society (largely done behind the scenes). This system IS broken Malcolm. It is not sustainable and plodding along as though it is will not help. "Economic growth" is the engine of a failing global ponzi scheme. The current squabble over whether or not our actions have affected our climate, is bringing plain evidence that we will destroy ourselves if we don't wake up and make some serious changes. Those ten people (for example) do not want us to wake up. They and their ilk have done a wonderful job of manipulating your mindset, and they would like us all to think like you. Fortunately for our next generations, the internet has broken the spell that television put much of the planet under. Critical thought is thankfully becoming much more common.

[deicer]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/149953/chomsky:_uprising_in_the_usa/

[deicer]

I think what is being missed in this conversation is the fact that all the 'good' middle class jobs were sent to Mexico, India, Vietnam, and especially China.

In the name of profit, the 'Big Wigs' ensured their income while removing any chance for the middle class to maintain itself.

Why doesn't Germany have this problem right now?

Could it be that they maintained their educational and manufacturing bases so that it's citizens can have decent jobs?

The American Dream is dead.

Thanks to the likes of Jack Welch, the U.S. de-industrialised and sealed their own fate.

Until the current version of Capitalism is overturned, nothing will improve.

[Specs]

However, if their company was not profitable, then the top executives should also get a haircut (reduced wages/benefits) in direct proportion to that of the rest of the employees.

One would expect that would be the result in theory. In practice however, the top execs would get a huge buyout package and the incoming execs, because the company is floundering and nobody will touch it with a ten foot pole, will have to be enticed with an even bigger salary/bonus package than their predeccessor had when the company was profitable.

Once their heyday passes and the company has gotten it's costs under control, those execs will then get their get out of jail free cards. And once again the board will bring in newer execs at even higer compensation levels, this time because they need the best at this juncture and can't risk hiring lesser paid execs.

[DEFCON]

I think Specs has hit the nail pretty squarely on the head.

I've been told; MBA school teaches its graduates, negotiate your 'severance package ' before accepting a position. The high severance package factor may too be influential in steering and maintaining excessive executive compensation levels?

[sustainable]

I think Specs has hit the nail pretty squarely on the head.

I've been told; MBA school teaches its graduates, negotiate your 'severance package ' before accepting a position. The high severance package factor may too be influential in steering and maintaining excessive executive compensation levels?

0

Well, the MBA school I went to never broached the subject and I've never heard that from anyone else. Don't cloud the debate with innuendo please.

[DEFCON]

Had lunch with two MBA's a short time ago. It was their claim that I put forward?

[J.O.]

Was it part of the curriculum or just part of the lunch room banter. I'd bet on it being the latter.

[cp fa]

I agree with Mitch. Those executive wages are obscene, especially in this day and age when so many are out of work, and have even lost their homes.

I think this is the reason behind the growing movement that started on Wall Street, and probably the reason why Air Canada isn't able to negotiate contracts with it's unionized workers. The starting wage for flight attendants at Air Canada is almost identical to what it was when I started flying in 1981. I'd like to know what the difference is between what Claude Taylor was making then, and what Milton and Rovenescu have made in the last couple of years. There is a very real perception that management squeezes as much out of the employees as they can, and in return, are given huge financial gains. If that perception is not based on truth, then I would like someone to prove it to me. If it is based on truth, then it is simply morally and ethically wrong.

When the big banks started failing in the US, and the government gave them the bailout money, people were outraged that the CEOs that left, whether they left on their own or were fired, still took millions of dollars out of the company in severance packages. They justified it by saying it was contractual. Last year the governor of Wisconsin tried to nullify labour contracts of several large unions, including the teachers union, because the state was out of money. Why are only executive compensation contracts binding, but not union contracts?

I've heard the justification for executive compensation that you get what you pay for, but doesn't that also apply to workers as well? There is a huge double standard, and I think the working public has had enough of it.

[Mitch Cronin]

I don't agree with you but what else is new. I continue to be annoyed by the "They Have so I should also have" crowd. In any event the 10 you show are at the head of very successful businesses and apparently the other employees are also reaping the benefits of working for a profitable company. However, if their company was not profitable, then the top executives should also get a haircut (reduced wages/benefits) in direct proportion to that of the rest of the employees.

By the by the table I was fed at was one of a Union Member, Supervisor etc. who raised a family on a limited budget but learned very early to stay within that budget and not go into debt for "Extras"..... (expensive vacations, large trucks / cars, fancy electronic etc). Thus I was able to retire on a modest pension and 11 years later am still able to make ends meet even though my pension is and was never indexed (translation.... what I got 11 years ago is what I get today). What was / is your table like????

Well, you completely misunderstand me, but what else is new. You keep mentioning your annoyance with that "They have so I should also have crowd", but there are none in sight, nor being talked about, except by you.

Here's the "what you've been fed" I was talking about Malcolm...

You see a "very successful business" as a very good thing. You've been told that since you were a kid, probably.

I see it as people being ripped off for the cost of that business' product, so that people who add nothing to the picture ("investors" "shareholders"), can collect rewards ...and a tiny fraction of very wealthy people, adding to their hoards (all those clubs and things they don't need piled in the back of their caves), while doing everything they can to maximize the difference between their own income and that of their employees.

I see it as a foul, psychopathic entity that serves only to empower itself and enrichen that tiny fraction, without regard to it's effects on individuals or it's environment (except where the appearance of doing so proves to be "profitable").

Look at this world today... It's a total mess. We're in chaos because we've put all our eggs in this debt-based, growth-based, "free market economy" ponzi basket, and all our collective power into the hands of very small number of unscrupulous, self serving, sick people.

[deicer]

The foundation is crumbling...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/pennsylvania-capital-harrisburg-files-for-bankruptcy-over-incinerator-debt.html

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, facing a state takeover of its finances, filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to pay the debt on a trash-to-energy incinerator

[Don Hudson]

. . .

I continue to be annoyed by the "They Have so I should also have" crowd.

. . . .

... I was able to retire on a modest pension and 11 years later am still able to make ends meet even though my pension is and was never indexed (translation.... what I got 11 years ago is what I get today).

Malcolm;

Well good for you - at present there are many who have the same benefit and it does make a tremendous difference. But I think you're implying that others "spent too much", "had outrageous demands" and therefore "want more from the employer" and I think that that is merely expressing a variation on the social darwinist notion of blaming the victim. It conveys to me the impression that you haven't perceived how your world has changed in those eleven years and I suspect you don't read much outside mainstream media that does the thinking for you.

You have continuously expressed a strong dislike for unions without really clarifying why, you have said that you think everyone should accept contract/piecemeal work instead of expecting steady employment and have said that part-time jobs should increase. Those ideas fall right in line with outsourcing work to cheaper countries so we could ask where you stand on that notion as well.

You say you're "annoyed by the 'They Have so I should also have' crowd". Let's unpack that statement and think about it. First, we'll ignore the top 5% who are unbelievably wealthy and concentrate on the 95% of workers who trying to deal with a trillion-dollar economy that has cut them loose and who are increasingly without, among many things, pensions. Modest or not Malcolm, YOU HAVE A PENSION. "Having" is a matter of degree - you have, most who came after you don't, and the reasons why are not complicated or difficult to understand - we've been talking about them here for over a dozen years, (my references to "profit over people, and why?" go back nearly twenty years). Where do you think your pension came from? Did you create and build your pension yourself or did your representatives act on your members' behalf, get tough and negotiate it for you?

Perhaps you don't intend it, but by your remarks you leave me with the impression that you believe you can afford to make such comments without considering how it is right now for those who follow. In essence malcolm, you convey the sense that you take all this for granted and that it is now up to all those who follow to give up what you already have "so corporations can again be profitable" and yet you say you are "annoyed by the 'They Have so I should also have' crowd". This is the mythology you appear to have accepted and from which you offer thoughts on the low value of unions and the need for individual employees to accept working conditions that would be entirely unacceptable eleven years ago when you retired. Yes, things have changed, mostly for employees - corporations and their managements continue to be examples of the dismissal of ordinary people and their welfare.

Companies are always in trouble and will take, by any and all means, whatever the can from employees - that is their legal mandate - to act on behalf of the shareholders to maximize profit. That is corporate law.

I respectfully offer the thought that the reality for the present generation is substantially different than your own reality and that some accomodation regarding the dialogue is needed by way of informing yourself about this new reality for others who are doing the work you used to do.

The answers do not lie in giving in to corporate mythologies about being poor because even if employees worked for nothing, there would be corporate complaints. The war against employees is not new nor is the disparity - in fact, when compared with 17th Century workers and even those in the 19th and early 20th Centuries we are incredibly better off. But the divisions between the fabulously-wealthy class and the working class which led in these centuries to changes in business and law now exist with a vengeance that is rallying that working class.

Mitch is quite right...you write as though you've swallowed everything you've been fed without the slightest thought to examination and critical thinking and can't see the hypocrisy of your remarks for looking.

The workforce has been splintered, atomized, the goal of which was to destroy labour's common voice and negotiating power. The common front today, with the assistance of government, is corporate, and is intent on taking as much away from employees as it can and is extremely clever at doing so, again with the assistance of government.

People don't waste their time in causes and gatherings that don't mean something. While there are always a few who are along for the ride the "Occupy X" movement is sustaining itself and spreading for very good reasons. You need to inform yourself of those reasons and discuss them on their merits because just recycling the same opinions is neither interesting nor is it a discussion.

From your response to deicer:

Yes jobs were sent out of the country but most folks who complain about that are also the same folks who are in constant pursuit of "A Discount / Deal". I wonder what would happen if we simply refused to buy "foreign" and only purchased "Made in Canada"? Of course finding "Made in Canada" requires a lot of looking and in this "International" world we live in, could result in those who purchase our products to do the same.

It sounds reasonable and a good explanation, but it isn't. Again, you're taking a sliver of history and plugging it into social darwinism to come up with what sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation until it is thought about.

"Buying cheap" is certainly a vicious circle and finding goods at home and paying higher prices at home theoretically "solves" the problem, but true isolationism disappeared and globalization emerged with the sailing ship and economies flourished, especially under the gold standard, which Nixon stopped in 1971 with the removal of the US from the Bretton-Woods Agreement. The idea that "Globalization is the bad guy" is another myth which has emerged as a simple and now convenient explanation which focuses the public's attention on a single cause, while cheap labour was increasingly found either physically or electronically in third-world countries. By the way, this only works for so long before "third world workers" demand first world wages - it's already happening in India. Historically, western economy wages began to level off and decrease long before such events, by about a decade before - there are lots of books which describe the history from various points of view.

I've heard the justification for executive compensation that you get what you pay for, but doesn't that also apply to workers as well? There is a huge double standard, and I think the working public has had enough of it.

I think you have hit the nail on the head - it just isn't any more complicated than that - ordinary people just want a fair shake and the trigger point has been reached. This is indeed what the working public has had enough of. This isn't just an idle public perception of "a few incredibly wealthy people" who rake in obscene quantities of money; dusty history books are filled with stories of such people. People with families to raise don't want millions of dollars they want a fair deal. But the possibility of any such fair deal has been almost completely written out of our political economy by both government and corporate power.

- Don

[Don Hudson]

Malcolm;

Thank you for responding.

I took the "part-time" notion as applying generally, as a 'formula' for profitability. I couldn't understand why it would just apply to AC. "Work" has become a piecemeal, contract arrangement with limited benefits. There are all kinds of ways corporations can keep "workers associated with the corporation for a short while" off the books in terms of taxes and legally-required benefits. Such an approach to how to treat employees

I understand "reacting to a generational change", but what is meant by that term? "Generational change" is everywhere - where and what are the boundaries of discussion? I would offer that people and their needs don't change. I would argue that the political economy has changed to suit the needs of a very narrow group of people and organizations. That's the entire point here.

People still require the basics and for increasing numbers those basics are out of reach at today's wage levels and at today's resucitating (and addictive) interest rates people have borrowed to fill the gap. (Can we imagine what a 3 or 4% increase in interest rates would do to our society right now?)

My entire point for twenty years now hasn't been anti-business, it has been fairness-not-greed. I believe in reward for hard work, successful risk-taking and success in making an organization productive and profitable for everyone, (not just the quarterly-report readers on Wall Street). cp fa made a terrific point but why doesn't that principle apply to employees as well? (One answer may be job definitions...employees are paid for following, taking orders, adhering to process, not taking risks or leading). Such approaches have been touted before, like profit-sharing and shares-as-wages, (in almost all arrangements but perhaps not WestJet, this latter is a direct conflict of interest for employees unless/until the organization and its shareholders buy into the notion that third leg on the three-legged stool, the employees, are to be fairly compensated).

[chockalicious]

Hi malcolm

I think #2 in your esponse is what people are up in arms about. The wealth is concentrated in too few hands. The rising tide has not lifted all ships.

[Lakelad]

.

More US Companies Having Difficulty Attracting Critical-Skill Employees

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Binoli Savani - RiskCenter.com

New York - With the U.S. economy still unsteady, most U.S. companies are finding it relatively easy to attract or retain workers, with one major exception -- critical-skill employees. A new survey from global professional services company Towers Watson and WorldatWork, an international association of human resource professionals, shows that for the second consecutive year, the number of U.S. companies having difficulty finding and keeping critical-skill workers has increased.

"Employees generally don't mind doing more with less especially when economic conditions are tough"

The Towers Watson Talent Management and Rewards Survey, a study of 316 North American companies, including 218 from the United States, also found that nearly two-thirds of respondents expect their employees to work more hours now than they did prior to the recession and see this trend continuing for some time. Additionally, respondents are concerned about the impact that organizational changes they made in response to the recession are having in areas such as employees' work/life balance, productivity and willingness to take risks. Most companies have already made or are planning to make additional changes to their reward and talent management, and other organizational, programs.

According to the survey, nearly six out of 10 U.S. companies (59%) reported problems attracting critical-skill employees this year. That is an increase from 52% last year and 28% in 2009. Forty-two percent also reported difficulty attracting top-performing employees. Additionally, more than one-third (36%) reported difficulty retaining critical-skill employees, an increase from 31% last year and 16% in 2009. Overall, only one in 10 companies is having difficulty attracting or retaining employees generally.

"Although economic conditions have improved and hiring rates have increased modestly since 2009, companies are experiencing difficulties finding and recruiting employees with critical skills," said Laura Sejen, global head of rewards consulting at Towers Watson. "Companies are taking longer to fill these positions, and more of them are open. There is clearly a greater-than-normal mismatch between the skills employers seek and those that are available in the marketplace. In short, despite the overall weakness in the job market, companies need a more appealing offering to attract critical-skill employees."

Employees Working More Hours

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of U.S. respondents report that employees have been working more hours over the past three years, and more than half (53%) expect this trend to continue over the next three years. Additionally, about one in three (31%) companies said their employees have been using less of their vacation or personal time off over the past three years.

The survey also found that more than half (56%) of U.S. companies are concerned about the long-term effects that changes they made during the recession will have on their employees' ability to maintain a healthy balance between work and their personal lives. And more U.S. employers are becoming concerned about employee productivity (39%) and their employees' willingness to take risks (37%). As a result, almost two-thirds (66%) of respondents have made significant changes in the HR area -- reward and talent management strategies, organizational structure, job evaluation process and competencies -- and many expect to continue to do so.

"In the short run, having employees work extra hours can increase productivity, but in the long run, extended hours can negatively affect employee well-being and retention," said Laurie Bienstock, North America leader of rewards consulting at Towers Watson. "Employees at many organizations are already suffering from change fatigue. As a result, when the labor market does recover, companies can expect a sharp increase in voluntary turnover, especially if they do not address employee concerns, and deliver reward and talent management programs more effectively."

"Employees generally don't mind doing more with less especially when economic conditions are tough," said Ryan Johnson, CCP, Vice President of Research for WorldatWork. "But when this drags into multiple years, and they start to hear anecdotes of recovery, they become less understanding. At that point, the entire employee value proposition is crucial to retention."

[J.O.]

Large houses are not simply a matter of a need for more. It is much more complicated than that.

50 years ago, housing for the majority was simply a roof over their heads. More recently, homes have been touted as an investment. Bankers, real estate agents and even the government have all encouraged it. Buy one now, it will increase in value and you'll be able to cash out later in life and retire on the profits. The bankers and investors got even richer on the interest collected on the big mortgages. Families were left with both parents needing to work full time to afford a home in their chosen community.

The net result of this is that houses are becoming difficult to afford for many young Canadians.

My wife and I bought our first home in 1983 in a mid-sized city in southern Ontario. It was a modest 2 bedroom house on a small lot in the city with a shared driveway and a one car garage. We were both in modest-paying jobs at the time and the purchase price was roughly 2 times our combined gross income. We had 25% for a down payment and the mortgage payments were about the same as the rent we'd been paying for a modest apartment.

If we fast forward to today, the situation would be very different. Those same jobs pay approximately twice what they did in 1983. That same home recently sold for 7 times what we paid for it. There would be no way that we could afford it. And there are no properties in that area that would be affordable on those salaries. They do not exist. It's no wonder many adults in their 20s and even 30s are living at home with their parents for so much longer. I'll be surprised if either of our kids are able to own a home by the time they're 35. That is not good for the economy in the long run and for people of my generation who have used their home as a retirement investment, they may get a rude awakening when the market goes flat and there aren't enough buyers out there to purchase their "investment".

[W5]

Turchansky: Attention protesters: Our old life is gone and isn’t coming back

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Turchansky+Attention+protesters+life+gone+coming+back/5546042/story.html

EDMONTON - The so-called Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which are coming to a Canadian street near you, are theoretically a backlash against the greed of North American banks and other corporations, and to a lesser degree the consumers who were lured by them.

But if you look deeper, for many protesters, Americans in particular, it’s a lament for the reduction in their standard of living.

Steve Wood, North American chief market strategist for Russell Investments, has a message for those people — get used to it.

“The entire world borrowed way too much money, and the entire world needs to pay it back,” said Wood, who’s based in New York, speaking to financial advisers as Russell’s fall road show hit Edmonton.

“The entire civilization of Western Europe is deleveraging right now. In the United States, it’s housing that’s the sector that’s going to be deleveraging. If you think we had a credit crisis in the United States, we didn’t, when a car mechanic can buy a million-dollar house in Miami, when a maid can buy three houses and flip them in Vegas or southern California.”

He sees only a 25-per-cent chance of a return to global recession, with a 65-per-cent prediction that we’re in a recovery shaped like a square-root sign — sharp downturn, sharp uptick, then a prolonged flat period.

His stock-market message is that “volatility is going to be a constant travelling companion for investors,” but it’s a mistake to eliminate risk when the market’s at the bottom of a cycle.

In an interview later, he said the biggest issue facing retail investors is the financial mess in Europe, which he rates not as destructive as theLehman Brothers failure, but more along the lines of the near-collapse of Bear Stearns.

He says North American companies are remarkably resilient and competitive. And his firm likes emerging-market stocks “if you’ve got the time horizon.” A key to North American competitiveness is keeping labour costs flat — which also prevents inflation from being an immediate concern — while emerging-market wages rise.

“I think whatever you made in 2007 was probably your high-water mark. I don’t think anybody’s going to get a pay raise in the next 200 years in this environment. Your Christmas bonus is that you’re not fired.”

He says that will allow the U.S. to lead a glacial economic global recovery.

“We think the U.S., in a very lumbering, clunky, grinding, unglamorous and unsexy way, is going to creepingly take the global economy forward the next few years,” Wood said.

He says China faces a real estate bubble. “China’s going to take their foot off the gas pedal and hit the brake the second or third quarter of next year.”

He feels American debt is manageable.

“If the U.S. just stabilizes spending it can grow its way into a more healthy debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) level, it has the luxury of time. But everything entails costs, pain, unhappiness.”

That’s what the Occupy Wall Street movement is struggling to come to grips with.

“We have already moved into a lower standard of living. Your kid will work longer and work harder and save more to get less. It’s almost like a sense of moral justification. I think we’re moving into a world that your parents or grandparents would recognize.

“Children will need a very sophisticated financial concept they don’t have in 20 states in America, that you need a down payment to buy a home. So you graduate from college, you get married, and the way things happen now, when you get back from the honeymoon the girl gets the house of her dreams. When did that become normal?

“They’ll have to do things like you did: You get married, you live with your mother-in-law for a couple of years, save up to live in an apartment, save up some more money, then you get the house you can afford, and after 20 years you buy your wife the house she always wanted. We’re going to go back into it, and people are not going to like that.”

He says we — Americans in particular — will face a new type of retirement.

“Forty years ago, when you were going into retirement, you had the entire staff of your company with pension plans, you had all the social security work administration work included, you had Medicare working for you in the U.S.A. Now you retire and you’ve got nothing.

“Why do the Chinese save 40 to 45 per cent — because they get nothing from the government. The Chinese eventually will receive more for the work they’ve already done. Here, you better either have a lot of kids or a lot of savings by the time you get old. Americans are going to have to work harder for the stuff they’re going to get. It’s a rebalancing of the global economy.”

He says U.S. recovery will be agonizingly slow, and whoever is in political power there won’t improve things.

“The government can hurt a lot, but there are no avenues it can help. I can think of no policies that will change things for the better. Unemployment is going to remain high, because people are not competitive for the jobs they want. And that’s an education problem; in the U.S. for example, why is it legal to drop out of high school before you’re 18? We should just say ‘no’. And the housing in the United States — we overbuilt by eight million units, we’re burning up about a million a year, and we’ve burned through about three million units.”

He says dissatisfaction is more intense in places such as Greece, where the austerity is more intense, but even in the United States, economic and financial expectations are going to be reset.

Ray Turchansky writes Fridays in The Journal.

[deicer]

How's this for an interesting watch....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy9jDHTnWyk

[DEFCON]

From the article:

"The entire world borrowed way too much money, and the entire world needs to pay it back,” said Wood, who’s based in New York, speaking to financial advisers as Russell’s fall road show hit Edmonton."

Or not?

Being; money purely represents 'debt', and it’s the ultra-rich that hold the debt; why not follow the Icelandic approach; i.e., go bankrupt and send the debt slave-masters packing? Starting over may be a little messy, but I think that's a better solution than placing future generations in perpetual servitude to the ultra-rich?

‘Mortgage’ in Latin = Death Grip… Courtesy of your friendly banking cabal.

[W5]

Something’s Happening Here

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/theres-something-happening-here.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: October 11, 2011

When you see spontaneous social protests erupting from Tunisia to Tel Aviv to Wall Street, it’s clear that something is happening globally that needs defining. There are two unified theories out there that intrigue me. One says this is the start of “The Great Disruption.” The other says that this is all part of “The Big Shift.” You decide.

Paul Gilding, the Australian environmentalist and author of the book “The Great Disruption,” argues that these demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits. “I look at the world as an integrated system, so I don’t see these protests, or the debt crisis, or inequality, or the economy, or the climate going weird, in isolation — I see our system in the painful process of breaking down,” which is what he means by the Great Disruption, said Gilding. “Our system of economic growth, of ineffective democracy, of overloading planet earth — our system — is eating itself alive. Occupy Wall Street is like the kid in the fairy story saying what everyone knows but is afraid to say: the emperor has no clothes. The system is broken. Think about the promise of global market capitalism. If we let the system work, if we let the rich get richer, if we let corporations focus on profit, if we let pollution go unpriced and unchecked, then we will all be better off. It may not be equally distributed, but the poor will get less poor, those who work hard will get jobs, those who study hard will get better jobs and we’ll have enough wealth to fix the environment.

“What we now have — most extremely in the U.S. but pretty much everywhere — is the mother of all broken promises,” Gilding adds. “Yes, the rich are getting richer and the corporations are making profits — with their executives richly rewarded. But, meanwhile, the people are getting worse off — drowning in housing debt and/or tuition debt — many who worked hard are unemployed; many who

studied hard are unable to get good work; the environment is getting more and more damaged; and people are realizing their kids will be even worse off than they are. This particular round of protests may build or may not, but what will not go away is the broad coalition of those to whom the system lied and who have now woken up. It’s not just the environmentalists, or the poor, or the unemployed. It’s most people, including the highly educated middle class, who are feeling the results of a system that saw all the growth of the last three decades go to the top 1 percent.”

Not so fast, says John Hagel III, who is the co-chairman of the Center for the Edge at Deloitte, along with John Seely Brown. In their recent book, “The Power of Pull,” they suggest that we’re in the early stages of a “Big Shift,” precipitated by the merging of globalization and the Information Technology Revolution. In the early stages, we experience this Big Shift as mounting pressure, deteriorating performance and growing stress because we continue to operate with institutions and practices that are increasingly dysfunctional — so the eruption of protest movements is no surprise.

Yet, the Big Shift also unleashes a huge global flow of ideas, innovations, new collaborative possibilities and new market opportunities. This flow is constantly getting richer and faster. Today, they argue, tapping the global flow becomes the key to productivity, growth and prosperity. But to tap this flow effectively, every country, company and individual needs to be constantly growing their talents.

“We are living in a world where flow will prevail and topple any obstacles in its way,” says Hagel. “As flow gains momentum, it undermines the precious knowledge stocks that in the past gave us security and wealth. It calls on us to learn faster by working together and to pull out of ourselves more of our true potential, both individually and collectively. It excites us with the possibilities that can only be realized by participating in a broader range of flows. That is the essence of the Big Shift.”

Yes, corporations now have access to more cheap software, robots, automation, labor and genius than ever. So holding a job takes more talent. But the flip side is that individuals — individuals — anywhere can now access the flow to take online courses at Stanford from a village in Africa, to start a new company with customers everywhere or to collaborate with people anywhere. We have more big problems than ever and more problem-solvers than ever.

So there you have it: Two master narratives — one threat-based, one opportunity-based, but both involving seismic changes. Gilding is actually an optimist at heart. He believes that while the Great Disruption is inevitable, humanity is best in a crisis, and, once it all hits, we will rise to the occasion and produce transformational economic and social change (using tools of the Big Shift). Hagel is also an optimist. He knows the Great Disruption may be barreling down on us, but he believes that the Big Shift has also created a world where more people than ever have the tools, talents and potential to head it off. My heart is with Hagel, but my head says that you ignore Gilding at your peril.

You decide.

[Lakelad]

go bankrupt and send the debt slave-masters packing? Starting over may be a little messy, but I think that's a better solution than placing future generations in perpetual servitude to the ultra-rich?

Suspect you'd find pension funds holding a large portion of debt.

[J.O.]

Speaking of pensions, I heard something the other day about an effect of the loss of pension plans for people in the US. Some of them are using unsecured lines of credit to replace the loss of money from their pensions. They have no intention of paying it off and plan on sticking the banks with the bill upon their passing. Since the debts are unsecured, the banks have no access to the estate to recoup the loss.