Now I feel inadequate because I only got a 5 percent raise last year and apparently other compugeeks did better. I demand equal pay for equal work, dammi

Admittedly I don't hear about a lot of people getting 7%+ raises, so I suspect that the figures include a lot of people who are reclassified or move from one job to a better paying job.

IMO the most interesting figure here - and I probablu should do an article to follow up on it - is the rather large amount of insourcing of work from overseas which the BLS reported. We hear about all the outsourcing of US jobs, but not so much about the fact that other countries are hiring US talent in pretty large numbers to perform specialized services for them.

Dave

Dave - using the BLS figures that you quote the difference between average CEO and worker compensation grew from 61,464 to 62,257 for the year

this contradicts your statement: *So the wage gap which some have gone so far as to suggest justifies a revolution and signifies the death of the middle class, is actually slowly closing...*

perhaps what you meant to say was that the rate of growth of the gap is slowing -- ?

A valid way of looking at it, troll. I wasn't looking at the actual gap, but at the rate of increase in salary. The rate of increase for CEOs is substantially lower than for average workers, but of course because the base salary for CEOs is higher, the actual dollar increse is greater. The trend needs to go a bit farther to actually start closing the gap for everyone.

I may not have emphasized it enough, but it's the lowest wage earners who have gained the most, not those already in the middle income group, with the exception of those in certain sectors - like computer related work. Computer workers already earning in the $30-$40K range gained more in straight take-home pay than the average CEO, and people working in the service sector or other low paying jobs gained more per capita than most middle income workers.

The point of it all being that the economic forces which are bringing higher salaries are helping everyone, not just CEOs. And the $2000 that a service industry worker had added on to his yearly salary means a lot more to him than that same $2000 added onto the salary of a CEO means to that CEO.

Dave

Globalisation.

The Lotus Garden restaurant near my place in Sydney serves the very same type of crispy skin duck as the Crispy Duck restaurant in Soho, London. These countries are 13,000 miles apart, yet the food seems almost identical.

Yum. I love globalisation.

Sad to tell you, Stan, but most Chinese food gets shipped frozen in bags from the same central distributorships in China and then the frozen sauce and ingredients get thrown together in a Wok for 5 minutes and they serve it. The same in Sydney or London or Austin. If you're lucky they at least use fresh veggies. It all tastes the same because the sauce was probably all cooked in the same big vat in Kowloon.

Dave

Eeeeh Yah. Have you been to Kowloon?? Bloody hell ... that's it then, I'm eating Japanese at Kirra-kaze next week.

I haven't been to Kowloon, but I've seen pictures. Does that count?

Dave

Maybe my good news from this article had a secret impact. Can I take personal responsibility for pushing the Stock Market over 13,000? It happened right when I wrote this.

Dave

STM, you're lucky. We rarely get the best Italian fresh produce here in Canada. Italian restaurants there are not the same as here.

Dave, sure. Why not?

Alessandro: with so many Italian migrants here, much of the stuff is made fresh in Australia - you can buy fresh pasta and locally ground coffee etc almost anywhere - so it's all very authentic. We even export dried pasta to Italy! Fresh food here really is fresh too, pretty much straight from farm to market to plate.

It's a miracle what our farmers have done in a country that has been suffering drought for six years. They have had to adapt traditional farming methods to suit the peculiarities of this continent, which is a very harsh place sometimes. Amazing really. They are struggling but they are heroes.

the author of this article is either an idiot or a propagandist, most likely a propagandist disguised as "a smart independent researcher." the REAL economic news is a nightmare and it's apparent to everyone that serious trouble is in store for mainstreet America.

This guy is retarded. Look at this article and it's clear he watches highly leveraged financial news all day where the hosts are paid to talk only optimism. Then he goes and writes this pathetic article. He's probably never had a real world financial worry in his life.

hey louse - cut it out...although Dave might be a real nally as you indicate he did live on peanut butter and crackers once while trapped in the Student Ghetto

Also, he smells like CIA, specifically employed as an "opinion shaper."

...and I bet that he designs his fonts to conceal codes

Laos, it's clear you didn't even read the first paragraph of the article, where I point out that my observations come from doing the exact opposite of what you ascribe to me. Do try to pay attention.

And if you disagree with my points, feel free to check my sources. You'll find them pretty reliable and neutral.

And troll, it was spam and crackers, not peanut butter. Oh how I wish I had been able to find some lovely peanut butter.

Dave

oh yeah - I must have repressed that disgusting image