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The positive economic news continues to come in. More money being made, the mortgage market kicking back in, we're heading back to our old selves again.
Unfortunately, those old selves were the ones that got us into this trouble.
You'll be happy to know the median pay for CEOs in large corporations went up 27% in 2010. Three quarters of CEOs got raises in 2010, to a median salary of 9 million, which, to be fair, included 2.2 million in bonuses.
I know I know, there's nothing median about an annual salary of 9 million. But hey, it's not like hiring fancy accountants to avoid paying taxes is cheap. And they weren't the only ones who got increases in 2010. Pay increases for all workers in private industry went up in 2010. It wasn't 27%...But it was 2.1%.
Sure, if you want to be accurate about it, you'd have to bring up it was only income increases for people who actually had jobs, and a lot of those didn't come back in 2010, but things are still looking up. Who knows, maybe one of those CEOs will open a factory with his 9 million. Maybe a book-publishing place that will put out cheaper copies of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged."
Except…Rand's heroes made money by building things. Atlas himself would certainly shrug over the other good news. Turns out one of the biggest new investments that’s really taking off ain't that new after all. It's sub-prime mortgages.
Yep, sub-prime mortgage bonds are currently yielding from 5 to 7 percent. Forget those factories and making real wealth. The easiest way to make money is to play with derivatives of someone else's.
Cool! Maybe we'll have another bubble!
Bubbles are so festive. Especially the big ones that explode and make craters...
America, ya gotta love it.