#121
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
Chalo wrote:
Jay Beattie wrote: Chalo wrote: The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for capital, mostly. I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful business plan carried out, but... first things first. Fairly paying the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the profit, comes first. What is an "inequitable profit"? That would be a profit reaped by capital without labor having gotten a living wage. First things first, like I said. Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis sets! Beats working, right? -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
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#122
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On Apr 13, 10:57*pm, Chalo wrote:
The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for capital, mostly. *I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful business plan carried out, but... first things first. *Fairly paying the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the profit, comes first. Chalo Any free capitalist system will result in most people being quite poor... subsistence or less. This was discovered quite early at the beginning of industrialization and capitalism in Europe... and quickly led to riots, communism, labor unions, socialist reform, etc. That is why every single developed and prosperous country in the world has *extensive* wage supports and wealth redistribution via taxes. The good news is that this results in much greater total wealth if it is done reasonably well. Production= consumption... and really poor people make lousy consumers. Since ~1980 the US has taken a dramatic turn. We still have a minimum wage, but labor unions are dead... and now we get to compete with the 3rd world for production wages! Taxes on the wealthy have dramatically dropped... and they are getting richer at an insane rate. The top 1% has seen a 380% income rise (adjusted for inflation) in the last 30 years, while median wages have been flat. Previous to that (after WW2) median incomes (and for the top 1%) rose ~100%. All the GDP gains since 1980 have gone to the wealthy. The easy credit, debt bubble, "women need to work", and government deficit spending were all schemes to mask the fact that the economy has sucked for most people. We were told that globalization would make us all richer. We were sold out. |
#123
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
AMuzi wrote:
Jay Beattie wrote: Chalo wrote: I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful business plan carried out, but... first things first. *Fairly paying the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the profit, comes first. Chalo, your average gasoline retailer makes between one and two cents per gallon. Bump that a dollar or so and every clerk can live like a king. Last I checked, the petroleum refining companies were racking up $40 billion per year in profit. But a person can't make a living working full time at a gas station. So that is a very good example of what I'm talking about. Or perhaps you wanted higher food costs? Which items do you think are underpriced now? The commercial items that don't offer any profit at all when minimum costs, including labor, are accounted for. Air travel has fallen into that category for much of the last twenty years. Some things, like medical and security services or public transportation systems, should never be for-profit businesses at all, because it deranges the motives of the providers, confuses their ethics, and leads inevitably to higher costs for poorer stuff. Chalo |
#124
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On Apr 14, 12:14*pm, AMuzi wrote:
Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis sets! Beats working, right? No one said it was easy, but neither are most jobs. The wealth distribution has really gone crazy in the last 30 years... loads of people working for $10/hr with no benefits. When I was a kid, anybody who wanted to work could support a family on one salary! Of course every employer wants to pay as little as they can. That is one key ingredient of why a "free" market results in widespread poverty. The other is that there will always naturally be an excess of workers with less than outstanding talents... ie they will have no bargaining power for higher wages. That is why the natural situation must be counteracted with laws... but this doesn't hurt employers. If there was a national law that forced you to pay your employees double the wage, you'd be no worse off because all your competitors would have the same expense. |
#125
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On Apr 14, 3:21*pm, Ron Ruff wrote:
On Apr 14, 12:14*pm, AMuzi wrote: Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis sets! Beats working, right? No one said it was easy, but neither are most jobs. The wealth distribution has really gone crazy in the last 30 years... loads of people working for $10/hr with no benefits. When I was a kid, anybody who wanted to work could support a family on one salary! Of course every employer wants to pay as little as they can. That is one key ingredient of why a "free" market results in widespread poverty. The other is that there will always naturally be an excess of workers with less than outstanding talents... ie they will have no bargaining power for higher wages. That is why the natural situation must be counteracted with laws... There are employers who treat their workers excellently. The owners of one local manufacturing plant were renowned for fairness and generosity, to the point that they not only paid a good wage, they took their employees on vacations and cruises. They donated heavily to the community, and in fact constructed the first rail-trail multi- user path in the area, about ten miles long. (They did that completely with private funds, with no government subsidy nor any pretense that it was "transportational.") http://business-journal.com/stavich-...-ysu-p9103.htm Unfortunately, such people seem to be getting more rare. I can't imagine why a CEO (or anyone else) deserves an annual income in the hundreds of millions of dollars, or why the ratio of CEO salary to worker salary needs to rise beyond what it was in the '80s. Hmm. Why don't we have CEOs working via the internet? I'm sure there are some smart folks in Bangalore who would welcome the outsourced job. They'd gladly do it for (say) a salary just 10 times that of the average corporate worker. It's not like the guys doing it now are more brilliant than ever before. - Frank Krygowski |
#126
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updates on his health please
On Apr 13, 10:46*am, wrote:
On Wed, 13 Apr 2011 05:12:03 -0700 (PDT), " wrote: anyone can provide an update/ Dear Andres, Jobst is at home with full-time care. He suffered a stroke after his leg surgery. The last I heard, he was still using a wheelchair and crutches because the leg isn't weight-bearing. When I called this morning, he answered the phone and said that he's recovering. Cheers, Carl Fogel Hey Carl, Thanks so much for replying. I Hope that he recovers soon. |
#127
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On 4/14/2011 11:02 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Tºm Shermªn™ " writes: On 4/13/2011 8:55 PM, James Steward wrote: AMuzi wrote: Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote: On 4/13/2011 10:53 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Apr 13, 2:15 am, Tºm Shermªnâ„¢ °_°""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI $southslope.net" wrote: On 4/12/2011 6:14 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Apr 12, 4:07 pm, wrote: The median wage for a man in Texas is $12/hour. The median wage for a woman in Texas is $10/hour. These people don't have to shop at Hellmart, but they can't afford locally tailor-made clothing or Phil parts for their custom recumbents. I sometimes wonder about what people can afford, especially relative to what my family could afford when I was a kid. When I was growing up in the '50s, my father had quite a good job by most standards. Mom was a homemaker. They were products of the depression and chose to have a large flock of kids. So we had a small house, especially on a square-feet-per-person basis. He gardened and tended six apple trees, and she preserved food. Most cars were bought used. He built the garage, paved the driveway and finished the basement rec room himself, with family help. Despite his love of music, we had no stereo, and (of course) just one TV. Household toys were not extravagant, the most prominent being a ping-pong table and a home-built pool table, plus lots of board games to play with the kids. By today's standards, we kids were deprived. These days, a person in his professional position would absolutely own a home 2.5 times as large, even though there would be just one or two kids. The cars might be Lexi or BMWs, there would be Wii, three computers, four cell phones, a TV in each room with the main wide- screen one hooked into a complete home theater system. But the music part would be little used because everyone would have an iPod. There would be more Nintendos than family board games. Kids would be given cars at age 16. And it goes without saying, Mom would work full time, because "things are so expensive these days." Been in a grocery store recently? In brief, it seems to me most middle class families are into buying stuff, far more than they used to be. We're enslaved by our possessions - or by the people who convince us to buy them. I think, for most people, more modest living could yield a lot more real, personal prosperity. _Your Money Or Your Life_ was an interesting book somewhat related to this subject. $10/hour is barely enough for rent in most urban areas, if you want to stay out of the slums. Yep. I wouldn't call $10/hr middle class. Neither would the Census Bureau, I think. - Frank Krygowski The shouting heads on the tee-vee think $10/hour jobs are "opportunities". Of course, these shouting heads really deserve to be re-educated in a labor camp for their sin of pandering for profit to the rich and powerful. Without those $8~10 jobs, no one gets that 'first job'. The important resume-building, character building, self discipline inspiring First Job. The important one. My first job with an actual legitimate taxes-withheld paycheck involved a broom. I moved up to the next position in a couple of weeks which is a typical course. Might one support a flock of children, a drug/liquor habit, second car and cable television on $10/hour? Of course not. My first was picking cherries. I suspect picking cherries now would yield $10 per hour, maybe more. Last I heard it was close to that anyway. I was able to earn enough during the picking season to afford fuel, food, books and a few bike and car parts while going through Uni. Do not know about contemporary OZ, but in the US with current tuition and housing prices, no way can a person put themselves through school at a 4-year *public* college/university at $10/hour, nor would they make that much doing seasonal agricultural work. Maybe in the 1950's through late 1970's when real wages were much higher, and food, energy, housing, and educational expenses much less. But that has been sacrificed so the already-too-rich-to-be-able-to-spend-my-income group can have even more. As a licensed engineer with more than 10 years experience making a wage within one-half standard deviation of the mean, I [1] barely have the discretionary income to pay for tuition, fees, books and housing for one (1) undergraduate student at a state university. Sending two (2) children to a state school at the same time would be out of the question, without borrowing nearly half the money. As for private universities - fuggedaboutit. [1] Example case - I am not actually paying for a student, but the costs are readily available. The rise in US post-secondary education costs illustrates graphically why government subsidy of debt is a horrible idea. The costs have not risen so much, but the contribution of the Federal and state governments to higher education have decreased greatly, putting a greater financial burden on the students. The reduced spending is the result of anti-tax hysteria in the middle class (despite the real benefits of tax cuts only going to the rich) promoted by think-tanks and news outlets funded/owned by the ultra-rich. -- Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007 I am a vehicular cyclist. |
#128
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On 4/14/2011 1:14 PM, A. Muzi wrote:
Chalo wrote: Jay Beattie wrote: Chalo wrote: The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for capital, mostly. I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful business plan carried out, but... first things first. Fairly paying the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the profit, comes first. What is an "inequitable profit"? That would be a profit reaped by capital without labor having gotten a living wage. First things first, like I said. Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis sets! Beats working, right? rhetorical question Does a Fortune 500 CEO really put in 500 or 1,000 times the effort of their rank and file workers? /rhetorical question sarcasm Then of course there is the hard work of being given a position due to nepotism and family connections, and the even harder work of inheriting vast wealth. /sarcasm Unlike the 1950's through late 1970's when USians had the highest upward social mobility in the world, the US is now regressing and has been passed by the social democracies of Western and Northern Europe. Scandinavia, with it much higher taxes is doing far better in quality of life and upward social mobility than the US since the Ray-Gun Revulsion. -- Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007 I am a vehicular cyclist. |
#129
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On Apr 14, 2:17 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Apr 14, 3:21 pm, Ron Ruff wrote: On Apr 14, 12:14 pm, AMuzi wrote: Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis sets! Beats working, right? No one said it was easy, but neither are most jobs. The wealth distribution has really gone crazy in the last 30 years... loads of people working for $10/hr with no benefits. When I was a kid, anybody who wanted to work could support a family on one salary! Of course every employer wants to pay as little as they can. That is one key ingredient of why a "free" market results in widespread poverty. The other is that there will always naturally be an excess of workers with less than outstanding talents... ie they will have no bargaining power for higher wages. That is why the natural situation must be counteracted with laws... There are employers who treat their workers excellently. The owners of one local manufacturing plant were renowned for fairness and generosity... There is a range of attitudes and approaches, and that is commendable, but still... The capitalist system incentivates paying the least you can get away with, and charging the most you can get away with. Any fudging on this puts you at a competitive disadvantage. As Ron said, moderation in the form of social conventions (like laws) are needed. There are already way too many people in existence for us to stand by and watch the law of the jungle take its course - unless we can do away with compassion (not recommended). ..., to the point that they not only paid a good wage, they took their employees on vacations and cruises. That's cool, but it still sounds like it might sort of play the aspiring to luxury carrot on-a-stick. They donated heavily to the community, and in fact constructed the first rail-trail multi- user path in the area, about ten miles long. (They did that completely with private funds, with no government subsidy nor any pretense that it was "transportational.") Interesting (needed a tax deduction, maybe?) (Sorry to come off so cynical :-) http://business-journal.com/stavich-...-ysu-p9103.htm Unfortunately, such people seem to be getting more rare. Have you seen that new TV show, "Secret Millionaire"? A millionaire goes undercover among poor people, checks out volunteer opportunities in the community, then gets all benevolent and gives some money (about what a Jeapordy champion makes in one night) to organizations at the end, and everybody gets all teary-eyed about it. I keep waiting to see one of these millionaires (most of whom seem the type with more to gain from the pubilicity than they give away on the show)... I keep waiting for one of these ****ers to actually see the light and give it *all* away at the end of the show (not holding my breath, but that sure would be cool). I can't imagine why a CEO (or anyone else) deserves an annual income in the hundreds of millions of dollars, or why the ratio of CEO salary to worker salary needs to rise beyond what it was in the '80s. Hmm. Why don't we have CEOs working via the internet? I'm sure there are some smart folks in Bangalore who would welcome the outsourced job. They'd gladly do it for (say) a salary just 10 times that of the average corporate worker. It's not like the guys doing it now are more brilliant than ever before. Power entrenches itself and hoardes opportunity. |
#130
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OT - Fair and Living Wages
On 4/14/2011 2:01 PM, Ron Ruff wrote:
On Apr 13, 10:57 pm, wrote: The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for capital, mostly. I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful business plan carried out, but... first things first. Fairly paying the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the profit, comes first. Chalo Any free capitalist system will result in most people being quite poor... subsistence or less. This was discovered quite early at the beginning of industrialization and capitalism in Europe... and quickly led to riots, communism, labor unions, socialist reform, etc. That is why every single developed and prosperous country in the world has *extensive* wage supports and wealth redistribution via taxes. The good news is that this results in much greater total wealth if it is done reasonably well. Production= consumption... and really poor people make lousy consumers.[...] Either way the rich have way more money than they can spend. Therefore, they generally prefer to have a greater share of a smaller pie, as relative wealth is relative power, and many are gratified by figuratively stomping on the proletariat. -- Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007 I am a vehicular cyclist. |
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