Have not had enough coffee yet but both commentators sound like college grads trying to impress someone. Like a twinkie, looks good but nothing of value. (I'll read the whole thing later when I've worked the kinks out.)

"The vertiginous valuations of startups like Uber ($40 billion) and Airbnb ($20 billion) ..."

The "value" of a company set by the fickle stock market has nothing to do with the actual worth of a company, it's product, or it's workers. Nothing. The stock market is merely an acceptable form of gambling.

"The third group, the "pros," have made a full-time job from one or more sharing platforms. By providing brand, marketing, support and distribution services, sharing platforms ..."

The "pro" do not provide the company with ANY of these "things". Nada, zilch, nothing. They provide time/experience/abilities. STUPID! IT departments are a huge expense as is the creation of "distribution services". (Is that like the owner's mother providing payroll and accounting services?)

Need more coffee.

The people that complain about CEO's making so much more than the lowest paid worker of theirs never complain about how much more Tom Brady makes over an entry level NFL referee. Very easy to google up "average starting salary for referee" and "average starting salary for player". Put your favorite sports in. Amazing the deltas, much worse when you plug in "highest paid player in XYZ" against the starting salaries for refs in the same sport.

Liberal media hates Uber and Lyft. One of the standard talking points is that driving for those companies isn't a "real job," that the companies are taking advantage of individuals who are only getting "scraps*" of the sharing economy by driving. I suspect that the anti-uber people are typically either taxi-monopoly supporters, or union people.

*I think it was a piece in Slate that used the term "scraps," but I'm too lazy to find it to link.

"intrinsic economic rights"

WTF?!? So, I *deserve* some level of income based on...what exactly? Just being born? The only "economic right" I recognize is the right for me to sell my products or services for a price that someone is willing to pay me (wages + any benefits). Supply & demand has been/is/always will be an iron rule that applies in any economic system. Want to make a lot of money? Then have skills for which someone is willing to pay, or be willing to work at a job nobody else wants. If all I have is burger-flipper skills, I cannot expect to receive tech CEO wages (or even $15 an hour, for that matter). To expect anything more requires a suspension of reality.

But then, I'm just a simple engineer, what do I know?

The 20th-century concept of the ideal job being one that comes with a large benefits package is going the way of the dodo. There will be a lot of advantages to this, not the least of which is that you'll be able to keep the same health insurance as you change jobs. This will all but eliminate the "preexisting conditions" problem.

However, it will catch a lot of people by surprise. The first problem is the concept itself: the idea that a job that doesn't come with a bunch of benefits can't be a good job will linger for a long time. A more significant problem will be that people will once again be responsible for their own retirement, instead of just being able to count on that company pension.

Another problem is that the compensation you used to get in benefits will now be in cash, which means it will get taxed. (That's the same reason that benefits arose in the first place.) Such may not be a bad thing, as it will make people more aware of how much tax they are really paying. But I'm afraid it will lead to calls of "government, do something!", and we'll wind up with some kind of Social Security on steroids.

A more significant problem will be that people will once again be responsible for their own retirement,

An even more significant problem will be that the government will be forced to step in when it's clear most people have done zero retirement planning.

Glad I'll be dead by then.

The pension is already gone CD. Baker Huges had a 'pension' in that they saved a portion of your paycheck each month and bought you an annuity with the money when you retired. Of course if you left before retirement they kept the money. Oh well. But seriously, if you don't work for a very large company or the government a pension is not a part of the deal. And I say good riddance to it.

The separation of work and health benefits is one of the few things I liked about obamacare. Most people have no idea how much they are spending on those benefits. Which leads to not correctly valuing them.

Dee,

The government has already stepped in for those people. It is called welfare. And while you may not live like a king on SS it is not that bad either.

"The people that complain about CEO's making so much more than the lowest paid worker of theirs never complain about how much more Tom Brady makes over an entry level NFL referee. "

But Tom Brady doesn't hire and pay the referee and can't make a business decision that will leave the referee bankrupt, repossessed, divorced and jobless.

CEOs can not only do that but after a massive failure that destroys thousands of jobs - skate away with tens of millions in golden parachute payout regardless of their incompetence.

I'm not particularly upset that the CEO makes more - it's that he wins at my expense as an employee even when he loses. America seemed to function just fine before the corporatocracy took over the government.

Examples…

"I'm not particularly upset that the CEO makes more - it's that he wins at my expense as an employee even when he loses. America seemed to function just fine before the corporatocracy took over the government."

Well, what you're talking about isn't really free enterprise; it meets the dictionary definition of facism. And yes, to a considerable extent, it's what we have now. But, going back to the original point, comparing your income or mine to a Fortune 100 CEO's income is meaningless, because we're comparing to an outlier. It would be sort of like us saying we got shortchanged in the intelligence department because we're not as smart as Stephen Hawking.

So what's meaningful? I say it is this: is our standard of living (or at least the portion of it that's influenced by economics) improving? In some ways it is, but in many ways it is not. When I was young, we definitely weren't rich, but we could afford a maid. Who can afford a maid now? My dad has told me that back in his cub engineer days in the early '60s, they worked hard, but they never worked through lunch and seldom had to take work home. I work through lunch nearly every day and I take work home pretty often. I've seen some figures indicating that, measured against inflation and costs of various commonplace goods, middle-class income has been stagnant since about 1998. I know that manufacturing productivity improvement, which had been happening since about 1982, stopped around 2000 despite so much of it being moved offshore.

Cousin Dave,

You need to compare apples to apples. Obviously maids could not afford to have maids. There are far more engineers today and far more college graduates as well. The field has widened so comparing the average engineer of today with the average engineer of 1940 is not a fair comparison.

As for take home pay, you are absolutely right. There is a sharp difference between those making over $100k and under. High wage earners are increasing their take home pay far faster than the majority of us. But here is the rub. The cost to employers does track. The difference is high income individuals are taking home almost all of their pay in cash. While the rest take home substantial benefits. Few people realize the true cost of their health care and other benefits.

Personally I am a contractor. I get no benefits. I think most people would be happier if they got paid straight cash and bought what they wanted on their own. But I may be biased, simply because it makes me happier.