[drevil-v2]

> They're only JUST NOW starting to get payed what they deserve

That is absurd. In a free market with free movement of goods and people, whatever you are getting paid is what you "deserve" aka what other participants in the market are willing to pay for your services.

It is only explicit government intervention that overrides this process; subsided renewal energy sources, childcare, housing etc.

But with everything else being equal your friends were getting exactly what the market could afford. Just because you have a PHD or Masters does not mean someone else owes you a high paying salary.

[mirimir]

In real markets, "free movement of goods and people" just doesn't happen. Workers arguably have more constraints on movement than employers and goods do. There's no human equivalent for long-haul trucking and container ships. Not to mention learning Chinese or whatever, getting a work visa, and adapting to the culture.

[lph]

> ...getting exactly what the market could afford.

"afford" is an odd word choice. As if to suggest that employers simply don't have any money by which they could have increased worker salaries.

In this same period, average CEO compensation increased 25-50%, depending on how you measure it. So, apparently, there's lots of money, but its distribution is skewing increasingly to the very top.

So let's not say "afford".

[refurb]

A CEO getting an extra $5M leading a 100,000 employee company means each employee could have gotten an extra $50.

So i would argue it still about what the company can afford.

[viraptor]

Thats only the CEO though. Add a few board members and VPs and it gets more significant. But even with $50 per employee - why not do that instead if you're aware of recession impacting people? (Apart from the obvious - because you want more money)

[refurb]

CEO comp is typically mostly equity, not salary. So is it surpassing that CEO comp goes up when the markets go up? Probably not.

[PenguinCoder]

An extra $50 per what? Year? Paycheck? Month? That's key.

[kemitche]

> subsided renewal energy sources, childcare, housing etc.

Skipping over oil company subsidies and big bank bailouts when you're cherry picking your government intervention examples makes you appear rather biased.

[rubicon33]

I would have thought it was obvious what I meant by "deserve" but apparently I have to spell it out.

No, I don't mean that they are owed anything. This is life after all. You nor I, are owed a damn thing. And in a free market, that's explicitly true.

Duh.

What I mean by "deserve" is... prior generations with similar qualifications enjoyed a much smoother, and more lucrative career. Boomers were handed a golden egg, and managed to nearly destroy it. The middle class is shrinking, wages are stagnant, and frankly if you're not underemployed as a millennial you're among the lucky.

[tdfx]

I agree with your premise that baby boomers have very tenuous grasp on how unique and lucky they were to grow up in the economic time period that they did. When the vast majority of the world's population is third world farmers and your country is at the forefront of industry and technological progress it's easy to coast and succeed.

However, that's clearly no longer the case and the average American needs to compete with a much broader pool of labor, increasing automation, and a growing middle class in more populous, emerging countries. I don't think millennials "deserve" what the baby boomers had; I just think the baby boomers didn't particularly deserve it either and it's becoming more and more obvious that the "normal" they experienced is an outlier era that will not return. Millennials need to learn to compete in this world and on average they are not well equipped to do so because they learned their perspective from a particularly (and unusually) privileged generation.

[rubicon33]

I like your perspective on the situation. It's both accurate, and far less pessimistic than mine. I'll do my best to adopt this way of thinking going forward.

[dragonwriter]

> Boomers were handed a golden egg, and managed to nearly destroy it.

In point of fact, the policies which did that were adopted while the balance of political and economic power were in the hands of the Silent Generation, but it took a while for the effect to be fully felt and the Boomers were the last generation to have most of their working life before the wheels fell off.

[smudgymcscmudge]

The historical norm is living at subsistence levels. The last several generations have been an anomaly. We will return to mean. The millennials children will be worse off and the next generation even more so.

[rubicon33]

I'm not talking about the 1400s. The context of this discussion is not ancient history. It's the last couple of generations.

[bumby]

I'd argue that you're not necessarily paid equivalent to your worth but rather according to your negotiating options.

The problem with a recession is that it tips the negotiating leverage towards the employers because there is an oversupply of workers. I don't want to speak for them, but I'm assuming the OP means getting to the pay level they would be at had the recession not occurred.

In a sense, both wage rates are "deserved" in the context of the economic reality, but there is a certain amount of luck involved, just like for those planning on retiring in 2008.

[50656E6973]

Do you consider it a free market if the government bails out big price manipulators when their scheme implodes?

[fuzz4lyfe]

I don't. Most free market thinkers aren't the GOP talking heads you see in the news. Those guys made their fortunes via regulatory capture, war and protectionism for the most part. Frankly it seems they have ridden that train into the ground the values of conservatives can only bend so far before voters start asking questions the politicians can't answer. Only socialism can provide the level of market control that the corporatists crave. Notice how firms got 'woke' all the sudden? Do you really think Pepsi is all about social justice?

[rdtwo]

Free markets only exist in heavily regulated industries because otherwise everyone cheats and there is no price discovery. Kind of ironic really.