In ‘n’ Out is well-known for paying well over the standard fast food rates. Kaus is supposed to be an Angeleno, he should know that.

Mr. Burns- wow, that makes it even dumber. And it was really bloody dumb to begin with.

You might want to step it up a bit on your hooker expenditures. I’ve heard those discount brands can come back to bite ya.

Malkin, Coulter, Goldberg, Kristol: Why the hell do ANY of these people continue to have jobs? They have been wrong about every thing that matters, and yet AEI still slips checks under the door. Christ.

Fridge note to Christopher Hitchens: You are not Suetonius. You’re a fat, dissipated, limey alcoholic. Fuck you.

Dammit — your link made me go to Mausfiles instead of Drum. I have vowed to not click on Slate as long as this mendacious bastard remains their blogger. He is a completely reactionary piece of crap who has no business pretending to be other than the right wing whore that he is. (Although as such he’s a cheap lay Bradrocket).

Alright, I’ve had my daily dose of ad hominem. But really, why this ugly little creep is taken seriously by anyone remains a great mystery to me.

I’m not saying you can raise a family on that (it works out to a bit less than $20,000/year).

*Sound of exasperated hand hitting face with forehead* But, Mickey, you brilliant argument by anecdote master, some people have families and work AT minimum wage. Single moms for instance, who struggle to pay for their daycare. And even if for some reason this was an accurate portrayal of the low end wage bracket, going from $8.50 to $9.50 (say) in a year, that’s what an extra $2000 a year? Yes it makes a difference but if you have kids, food, rent and no affordable daycare spots… I hardly think that you’ll be eligible for one of Bush’s Millionaire Tax Cuts soon.

Yes, In ‘n Out is a privately-owned restaurant, and the Christians who run it believe they have an obligation not to screw their employees. Also, higher wages and benefits, plus good treatment, tends to make people stick around and work harder.

Mickey is a member of the Kewl Kids Klub. Once a member of the Klub nothing you can say or do gets you kicked out. Well original thinking that challenges the status quo would but you never have to worry about that from any of the Kewl Kids. Pimping conventional wisdom is what got them there and they will do nothing to jeoperdize their priviledged position.

Yes, In ‘n Out is a privately-owned restaurant, and the Christians who run it believe they have an obligation not to screw their employees. Also, higher wages and benefits, plus good treatment, tends to make people stick around and work harder.

Pfft! Please! Businessfolk acting like real Christians! They shoulda taken a page outta Sam Walton’s playbook, I tells ya! Then Mickey would be writing articles that praised them, all the while smarmily trashing anti-Wal-Mart radicals!!!

yes, just echoing others, in n out pays very well all the way up the food chain, from new hires through managers. this is well known by everyone in the area.

They also peel their own potatoes for their fries.

Mickey is a member of the Kewl Kids Klub. Once a member of the Klub nothing you can say or do gets you kicked out.

I don’t know how the biggest nerds in the universe managed to make themselves part of the Kewl Kids Klub. I guess cashing checks from their billionaire employers makes them think they’re cool. Ugh, losers.

The average CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company made $13.51 million in total compensation in 2005, according to an analysis by The Corporate Library.
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/

13.51 Million / 52 weeks = $259, 615.40 /wk

259, 615.40/60 hr =$4326.92/hr
===============
Sure thing Mickey, someone earning $9.50/hr is; of course, the problem.

After less than a day of happiness, S,N!’s gay hamsters seem to have revolted and we’re back where we were a couple days ago. The page rarely loads and loads slowly.

Surely you can solve this problem!

actually fast food work is often not minimum wage. I dunno where this guy gets his information from, but so many winger pundits haven’t had to deal with reality in a long time.

A better question is, could these wingers be qualified to work even at a fast food restaurant if they stopped getting their welfare?

I believe $9.50/hour is actually the work-study wage paid by UCLA. It is the university/Associated Students setting the standard service industry wage in the Westwood area not In-N-Out.

I’m saying tight labor markets–produced by growth and maybe a boost in immigration enforcement – eventually raise wages at the bottom

Kaus surely has a fascinating, if not actually reality-based, explanation for how teenagers are competing with illegal immigrants for burger joint jobs in Orange County.

Whats troubling here is that you were overcharged. You can find good quality h0’s at half the price.

糖尿病 糖尿病症状 糖尿病饮食

糖尿病治疗 妊娠糖尿病 糖尿病的症状 糖尿病症状 糖尿病的饮食 糖尿病的治疗 中国糖尿病网 妊娠期糖尿病 糖尿病并�症 2型糖尿病

Shit, I thought Slate folded 2 years ago. Nobody reads that shit anymore.

Malkin, Coulter, Goldberg, Kristol: Why the hell do ANY of these people continue to have jobs? They have been wrong about every thing that matters, and yet therefore AEI still slips checks under the door. Christ.

fixed yer typo

“Also, higher wages and benefits, plus good treatment, tends to make people stick around and work harder.”

Except many corporations, especially the unskilled ones, don’t WANT people sticking around. Long term employees cost more money then new ones do.
Circuit City announced just a few days back that they’re going to fire a few thousands workers, then let them re-apply for the same job at reduced pay.

Hey, anti-immigration nuts: wanna slash the problem at the source? Raise minimum wage and enforce tougher standards for employment to prevent under-the-table payment. With no incentive to hire immigrants over citizens, and more money riding on decent workers, they’re gunna pick the ones who speak English.

According to bable fish:

Diabetes diabetes symptom diabetes diet

and

The diabetes treatment pregnancy diabetes diabetes symptom diabetes symptom diabetes diet diabetes treats the Chinese diabetes network gestation period diabetes diabetes illness complication 2 diabetes

Circuit City announced just a few days back that they’re going to fire a few thousands workers, then let them re-apply for the same job at reduced pay.

When I read this news last week my jaw dropped. In Canada, a lay off has always equalled attrition. No employer can lay people off and replaced the laid off workers with cheaper labour. (I believe this regulation comes out of the dept that administers employment insurance and the foreign worker program.)

So what Circuit City intends to do is close all the stores up here. Kind of like Walmart closed all the stores where unions received certification.

Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out, Circuit City. These jobs are a dime a dozen now anyway. Retail is begging for workers.

I saw a sign, therefore immigration enforcement is working.

Clearly the only appropriate response is: “Shut the fuck up, Mickey. You’re out of your element.”

Yay. The hamsters came back from the club.
I’ve been up all nite worrying. Or somethin.

*Sound of exasperated hand hitting face with forehead*

His Grace, are you hitting your face with the forehead you have in your hand? I’m concerned, nay, worried.

I got no idea what’s going on with this server, people. The last Gathering of Assholes DDoS attack musta done something extra special…

His Grace, are you hitting your face with the forehead you have in your hand? I’m concerned, nay, worried.

Well, I’d like to say that that Mickey’s “reasoning” was so warped that my hand grew a forehead, but unfortunately Occam’s Razor seems to lead to the conclusion that I was just pissed off at what he said and didn’t edit.

Mickey’s “reasoning�

Reaganeutics: the understanding of the world via cherry-picked anecdote.

Also, higher wages and benefits, plus good treatment, tends to make people stick around and work harder.

From my own experience in the general labor pool, dating back to the early 1970s, and my reading of the late great J.K. Galbraith (a humorist in the vein of Mark Twain), economists tend to re-discover this truism approximately once every seven years. And it comes as a surprise to them every goddamned time, which puts the collective historical memory of the Greater Economic Wisdom about on par with that of the American Household Dog. Ergo, the reason Mickey Kaus is still collecting checks from Slate, which I believe is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Washington Post corporation (because the Post wasn’t losing readers fast enough in its print format), is because the collective Heirs of Adam Smith are approximately as bright as your dog — assuming your dog isn’t very bright, by dog standards.

I have concluded that Reynolds, Mrs Reynold and Kaus are just Team Rocket in disguise. They even have the occulted transhumanist/fascist shtick down:

Jessie: Prepare for trouble…
James: …and make it double!
Jessie: To protect the world from devastation!
James: To unite all peoples within our nation!
Jessie: To denounce the evils of truth and love!
James: To extend our reach to the stars above!
Jessie: Jessie!
James: James!
Jessie: Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!
James: Surrender now or prepare to fight!
Meowth: Meowth, dat’s right!

am I the only one who thinks that his parents were REALLY mean? Unless that is a freely chosen handle, c’mon – Mickey Kaus? Really?

Mickey Maus I could see, but Mickey Kaus? His name is almost as stupid as his writing…

Here’s your answer, from Heathers:

DAD
(looking at his cigarette)
Goddamn. Will somebody please tell
me why I smoke these damn things?

MOM
(shaking her head)
You two….

Mmmmm…..In n Out burger…..mmm. Onion rings….fries….

Mickey is a member of the Kewl Kids Klub. Once a member of the Klub nothing you can say or do gets you kicked out. Well original thinking that challenges the status quo would but you never have to worry about that from any of the Kewl Kids. Pimping conventional wisdom is what got them there and they will do nothing to jeoperdize their priviledged position.

Also from Heathers

You can get kicked out of the kewl kids klub, but you have to kill the jocks and blow up the school to do it.

I can’t believe I was beaten to the Heathers post by Althouse’s breast. Her RIGHT one, even.

I can’t believe I was beaten to the Heathers post by Althouse’s breast. Her RIGHT one, even.

I suspect my Left Breast is unpatriotic!

Owlbear,
13.51 Million / 52 weeks = $259, 615.40 /wk
259, 615.40/60 hr =$4326.92/hr

It’s actually worse than that. When you try to set an hourly wage that matches your annual salary (say, like whan you get laid off and have to contract), you assume 2 weeks PTO, 2 weeks vacation, and 40 hours/week. So if these guys were actually paid hourly and not getting paid for time off or overtime, they’d get

13.51 Million / 48 weeks = $281,458.33 /wk
$281,458.33 / 40 hr = $7,036.45 /hr

No benefits calculated in there, of course: the contracting firms I worked for added a minimum of 30% to the wage to account for standard benefits:

$7,036.45 /hr * 1.30 (benefits) = $9,147.40 /hr

That’s with no stock options, pension plans, bonuses, company cars, or golden parachutes: just health insurance, life insurance, unemployment insurance, and AD&D (no vision or dental).

You’re not really a pundit until you can spin a whole column-worth of bullshit from one data point!!

Also, Westwood is smack-dab in the middle of one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world. It borders on Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and Brentwood, with Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, West Hollywood, and the Hollywood Hills just a jump away. Wages are higher because the cost-of-living in the area is so expensive.

…the collective Heirs of Adam Smith are approximately as bright as your dog – assuming your dog isn’t very bright, by dog standards.

I have accountants who make more than M. Kraus.

i

Dorothy, I appreciate your quest for truthier numbers, I do. I’m completely sympathetic. However:

$281,458.33 / 40 hr = $7,036.45 /hr

Even the middlingest of middle managers that I know work more than 40 hours/week. In fact, I would put the low bar at 50 hours per week.

Not that I disagree with your premise, just that if we’re going to improve the quality of the calculation, we should improve the assumptions around every variable, not just the ones that make the number even more mind-numb(er)ingly ridiculous.

Oh, and for the record? Even though many of them are hidden behind their respective corporate firewalls, I would argue that Kaus is the stupidest mo-fo on the *Intranets*, as well.

ImJohnGalt,

I realize that the CEOs are working more than 40 hrs a week, and I also realize that many of them may not take their 2 weeks off every year. The calculations I used are those used by contracting firms to determine an hourly contracting rate from position that would normally pay an annual salary.

I wasn’t trying to be shocking: I was just using the same formulas I use when bidding a contract position.

according to usdol/bureau of labor statistics (july2004)
food preparation, not elsewhere classified = $ 7.55 /hour
at an average of only 27.4 hours/week = $ 10,758. /year
if mickey kaus ever were to notice the pus drizzling down his pants leg,
he would conclude the whole world had veedee.

Even the middlingest of middle managers that I know work more than 40 hours/week. In fact, I would put the low bar at 50 hours per week.

Middlingest of middle managers, perhaps, but you’d be surprised how little the upper management — specifically, the executives — work. I say let’s improve our assumptions even more.

(And yes, I’d have to see some very compelling reasons why schmoozing over cocktails, COO “boot camps” in Puerto Vallarta or Ibiza, and networking in Aspen should be considered work. Just because it’s done on the company dime doesn’t count.)

hey people, this crap(hours worked and wages) is already measured. you can put your (dumbass) assumptions back in your snood (yeah, i said it, look it up).

teh l4m3:

Middlingest of middle managers, perhaps, but you’d be surprised how little the upper management — specifically, the executives — work. I say let’s improve our assumptions even more.

I know, I should just let this be. I agree in more than principle that the gap between C-level execs and line workers is totally fucked up, but headline-hogging corrupt motherfuckers notwithstanding, this just hasn’t been my experience. I would indeed be surprised if you knew tons of upper management across a broad number of companies that don’t work very hard.

I’m a business owner. I employ 20 people up here in Canada. I *never* work less than 70 hour weeks. I usually crawl out of bed, work until 11:00, crawl back into bed, and repeat. I haven’t had a vacation in 3 years, provide great benefits to my employees and my take home pay is barely more than any of them.

My wife is a senior exec (general counsel) in a fairly large ($1 Bn revenue per year) movie exhibition company. She gets paid about twice as much as GM line workers (many of whom at our local plant made more than $100k last year with overtime – I don’t begrudge them this, btw). I barely see her because she works at *least* as many hours as I do and (like I do) feels like she falls further and further behind at work because they don’t have budget to give her the additional lawyers she needs.

Before moving back to Canada I worked in NYC as a business strategy consultant, which basically meant I did a whole lot of work for CEO’s of multinationals, usually financial analyses around growth strategies we were recommending. We’re not talking Dennis Koszloskis or Ken Lays who were basically fisting their shareholders and employees, but people in non-sexy industries who were really fucking stressed-out trying to create returns for their shareholders while trying to do right by the people who worked for them and their customers.

Not all senior executives ride in private jets and buy $6000 umbrella-stands. I know it may not mean much, and that “data” is not the plural of “anecdote”, but I knew a whole lot of executives that flew coach, drove Toyotas and bought clothes off the rack at Macy’s. It being NYC, many of them even voted Democratic (surprise!)

I dunno why I feel compelled to write this. I’m not defending the 450x-salary CEO, but “senior executive” doesn’t automatically mean “fucking over the rest of the workers”. The demands on a CEO are great. You don’t often read about the ones with integrity who do their job because it ain’t newsworthy, but they’re out there. You might not believe that networking in Aspen (or Davos) might be considered part of the job description, but guess what? Some people get paid to neck with Angelina Jolie and Ashley Judd on camera (not at the same time – that happens in my dreams every night).

FWIW, I’m a huge-fucking-l Liberal who happily pays my taxes (both corporate and personal) because I appreciate everything that I’m fortunate enough to have. I volunteer, I would vote for a bowl of Lime Jello if it were the Democratic candidate (I’m a dual US/Canadian citizen), but there’s nothing inherently evil about being a senior executive. There are good and bad Senators and Congressmen. There are good and bad sports teams (fuck you, Yankees!), and there are good and bad executives. I just don’t see the upside of demonizing them just because they got to the positions they did.

Now, if you want to pillory those who fail upward (WPE, anyone?) or who do live lives of excess while doing nothing to make the world a better place, well, praise the lord and pass the tomatoes.

The figure I quoted was for total compensation (that included stock grants it didn’t include ‘perks’ like cars, hotels, dinners, etc) . It was also only for the S&P’s 500.

I chose a 60 hr work week. Even if you made it 24/7 (168 hrs) it works out to $1545/hr.

Ultimately; my point was, how dare that ignorant fuck whine about $9.50/hr as somehow ‘TOO HIGH’, when it is LEECH CEO’s who are the problem.

I would vote for a bowl of Lime Jello if it were the Democratic candidate

If you think saying things like that is going to earn you respect, you really need to reevaluate your assumptions.

Sorry, I meant a plate of raspberry-flavoured gelatin.

Kaus is still paid for the same reason Freidman is. By luck or by effort they each wrote a decent book many years ago, and have been lazily coasting on it since.

I chose a 60 hr work week. Even if you made it 24/7 (168 hrs) it works out to $1545/hr.

Ultimately; my point was, how dare that ignorant fuck whine about $9.50/hr as somehow ‘TOO HIGH’, when it is LEECH CEO’s who are the problem.

owlbear, of course, you’re correct. Forgive my verbal diarrhea above in solidarity with those oppressed CEO’s making a shitload of money. My intent was not to defend the massively high compensation of corrupt CEOs (or even those who have integrity but are still outrageously paid), but rather to assuage myself that not everyone who attains those positions is a complete dickwad.

I went right to the source (Forbes) for their 2005 rankings (the latest available), and the median *total* compensation of fortune 500 CEOs, which included stocks/options/etc. was $4.7 Mn. The year before it was $3.4 Mn. I humbly admit that I’m basically arguing how many angels can fit in Mickey Kaus’s cold, cold heart, so I’ll just pack up my receptacle full of Splenda-sweetened fruit dessert and stop now.

Minimum wage should be a helluva lot more than $9.50 or whatever the fuck Mickey Kaus thinks the local Big Boy should be paying its dishwashers, yes.

Mickey Kaus is a venal man whose compassion (and intellect) could fit in a fullerene and still have room left over for, uh…whatever else is that small that would make my point for me.

In the face of growing numbers of poverty, that any CEO (especially those that have failed elsewhere) can make a salary measured in the high double-digit millions seems very un-Christian to me, and I’m an atheist.

Don’t even get me started on athletes and movie star compensation.

In a moment of clarity, I realize that I was just feeling guilty in the face of these numbers that I’d like to be rich someday too, and was rather trying to convince myself that becoming a wealthy Republican prick wasn’t inevitable. I’ll refrain from working out my issues in public from now on.

trying to convince myself that becoming a wealthy Republican prick wasn’t inevitable

When times are trying, ImJohnGalt, think of George Soros and Warren Buffett.

IJG, don’t sweat it. I think the rational among us recognize that the real problem is Mickey Kaus and the fact that he maintains a position that allows him to try to infect brains with his brand of viral stupidity.

Also, I liked your line about “data” not being the plural of “anecdote.”

Not mine, alas, although if it hasn’t been trademarked perhaps there’s a claim to be jumped.

I merely agreed with your point that we should improve the assumptions around every variable, not just the ones that make the number even more mind-numb(er)ingly ridiculous.

…And attempting to take it to yet another level. And then, you went even further. Alas, it would be impossible to refine all the variables to where you’d be accurate enough for a, say, book-length substantive discussion — I certainly don’t claim to be able to, and perhaps I should have qualified my comment more carefully. Unfortunately Mickey Kaus won’t even go as far as the least concerned of us would…

And I’ll stay mum on your defensiveness, seening as you were posting on a site that [homervoice]shhhh! MIGHT EVEN HOST SOME COMMUNIST POSTERS.[/homervoice].

Yeah, I’m a dick. I don’t know what ever possessed me to click “submit comment” on an ill-conceived post about executive compensation when I *know* that Sadly, No! is an autonomous collective whose members are being repressed.

I’ll crawl back into my eco-friendly hole now.

IMJohnGalt,

Yeah, I’m a dick.

Yeah, but at least you’re not a dickwad.

And no one said that CEOs were EVIL USELESS PEOPLE! That distinction belongs to Libertarians.

I’m gonna weigh in on behalf of the fellah who says he’s john galt. I don’t know shit about big corporations. Know why? Despite a pretty broad set of skills, my *ahem* background does not permit me to work for them. I’ve worked for small companies (

I like pie!

You mean people still actually try to read M Kaus?? God, who knew! I wrote his stuff off as completely incomprehensible a long time ago. I tried to figure it out, but lifr is too short and I’ve got kids to raise.

And the hooker I paid for last night jacked her price up to 60 bucks, meaning all hookers across the country must be multikatrillionaire hookers by now, with spinning platinum rims on their Corvettes.

No, no, no.
Here, let me fix that for you.
“And the hooker I paid for last night jacked her price up to 60 bucks, meaning all hookers across the country must be multikatrillionaire hookers by now, with spinning platinum rims on their money-makerz and their momma-udders.”
There.

[…] Kaus demands crow: Didn’t Kevin Drum and other leftish bloggers sneer when I suggested that rising unskilled wages were in the offing? I think they did! … […]

Kaus has always been a whore for corporation royalists. But I like what’s changed. He’s much shriller every year.