Employees are to blame for slowing the economy?
Consumers (employees who spend their hard-earned money) are now to blame for slowing the US economy because they're bargain shopping to maintain the same standard of living. With stagnant salaries providing less disposable income, people are becoming savvy shoppers to stay whole—and that's being called a bad thing. What are employees and their families supposed to do—go further into debt to buy food and clothes at artificially marked-up prices?
But are consumers really spending less? Has anyone factored into the economy the increase in money spent by consumers on medical products and services—prescription medications, insurance premiums, doctor visit co-pays—expenses that were once paid by employers and are now paid by employees? And how about the need to save for retirement because pensions are going the way of the dinosaur, social security is unreliable and most people don't have MBA's in investing to help them manage their stock-based 401K's and 403B's? Perhaps it's how we measure the health of economy that's a problem.
By the way, where has all that additional profit gone that companies "earned" by taking benefits and compensation away from employees rather than developing strategies for becoming more globally competitive? Could that extra profit be in the savings and investment accounts of executives? It would be interesting to see a correlation between the increase in balances of the personal savings and investment funds of overpaid executives and the slowdown of the economy. Could it be that the slowdown is really their fault?
Perhaps employees could help grow the economy by demanding that their executives spend more time developing long-term competitive strategies and less time figuring out how to get bigger bonuses for meeting quarterly financial objectives.
But are consumers really spending less? Has anyone factored into the economy the increase in money spent by consumers on medical products and services—prescription medications, insurance premiums, doctor visit co-pays—expenses that were once paid by employers and are now paid by employees? And how about the need to save for retirement because pensions are going the way of the dinosaur, social security is unreliable and most people don't have MBA's in investing to help them manage their stock-based 401K's and 403B's? Perhaps it's how we measure the health of economy that's a problem.
By the way, where has all that additional profit gone that companies "earned" by taking benefits and compensation away from employees rather than developing strategies for becoming more globally competitive? Could that extra profit be in the savings and investment accounts of executives? It would be interesting to see a correlation between the increase in balances of the personal savings and investment funds of overpaid executives and the slowdown of the economy. Could it be that the slowdown is really their fault?
Perhaps employees could help grow the economy by demanding that their executives spend more time developing long-term competitive strategies and less time figuring out how to get bigger bonuses for meeting quarterly financial objectives.
