http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTa...
Pylab made me a nice graph of total comp (based on tables 6.2D and 6.4D from http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected...):
2000 non-wage compensation per employee is (Stats taken from your first link and 6.2C): (615,931 * 1,000,000) / (137,228 * 1,000) = 4,488 per employee
2009 non-wage compensation per employee is (Stats taken from your first link and 6.2D): (1,072,019 * 1,000,000) / (136,089 * 1,000) = 7,877 per employee
Your graph shows an increase of close to 20,000 from 2000 to 2009. If wages were stagnant, non-wage compensation doesn't explain this increase.
Edit to add: if you look at private companies only, which seems fair given this article is about collusion between private companies, the numbers are worse than those mentioned above:
2000: (424,680 * 1,000,000) / (114,597 * 1,000) = 3,705
2009: (690,975 * 1,000,000) / (136,089 * 1,000) = 5,077
(Using this inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi)
Also, since the article is about collusion between google and apple, we should really be comparing compensation for the best programmers. I admit, I have no idea whether that went up or not.
http://yakkstr.com/posts/791-This-is-whats-wrong-with-Americ...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_10...
Please show your unflawed version and tell me what point you think it is making.
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa...
The key graph: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/07-09/figure2.jpg
I take it we are in agreement?
"Wage growth rates at the 10th and 20th percentiles were only slightly below the median growth rates, increasing by 17 percent and 18 percent, respectively."
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa...
"As noted, some economists have argued that relatively large wage gains at the top end of the wage distribution drove the increase in average wages, while median wages grew little if at all. I have shown that, in fact, median wages increased appreciably since 1975—by 28 percent—once benefits were included"
When he says that median wages increased, he is including the insane amount healthcare costs have risen. He is counting what employers pay for health insurance as compensation for workers. This makes sense on some level, but it also makes it clear that the take home money of average workers has stagnated while it has sky rocketed for the super rich. The fact that employers are paying more for healthcare (and we are paying more for it too) is not a sign that things have improved for average workers, in fact it's a sign of the opposite.
I'm just saying that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Sometimes the wider economy favours the employee, sometimes it favours the employer, that's all.
(And, often, the industrialists were colluding with local governments in addition to each other, making it even worse; especially during the period of the "mine wars".)
I don't really like unions, but collusion like this is an understandable reason to form them: if the companies are all agreeing behind closed doors to do X and not do Y, the only real ways to force them (since they've removed the ability of market competition to do so) are to either: 1) pass a law banning the objectionable practice, e.g. California's prohibition of non-compete agreements; or 2) get a large enough group of people to all agree not to work for any company unless certain terms are met.
In fact, it's only a tiny minority of people who care whether their political principles are consistent or not.