Rich mans letter to rich men
07 Jul 2014, 8:58 am
A pitchfork revolution would be a fitting resolution to the problem. Brutal redemption for brutal apathy.
http://topinfopost.com/2014/06/30/ultra ... are-coming
thomas81
Veteran
Joined: 2 May 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,147
Location: County Down, Northern Ireland
07 Jul 2014, 9:56 am
Can't disagree with anything he says. If even a 1 percenter gets it, why can't some of the hawks on this forum?
07 Jul 2014, 11:08 am
thomas81 wrote:
Can't disagree with anything he says. If even a 1 percenter gets it, why can't some of the hawks on this forum?
Maybe because NOTHING is ever that simple.
His reasoning is sound. Like Henry Ford, how many workers can afford the very product/service they are employed to produce? Not many, and THIS is why the middle class is dying in America.
The problem is that just raising the minimum wage WILL NOT solve the problem.
Henry Ford hired skilled/semi-skilled workers. A lot of jobs in America do not require any meaningful skill set. Any increase in minimum wage = bumping everyone elses' pay so that they aren't making qualitatively less than the new guy.
Quote:
Yup. But please, please stop insisting that if we pay low-wage workers more, unemployment will skyrocket and it will destroy the economy. It?s utter nonsense. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn?t believing that if the rich get richer, it?s good for the economy. It?s believing that if the poor get richer, it?s bad for the economy.
He say's it's nonsense...in reality the opposite is true...for the very reason he is writing the article in the first place. If the minimum wage goes up, employer want to cut hours/positions to compensate on the impact on their bottom line. Hence, higher minimum wage (under the current paradigm) = lost jobs.
I see this in many applications, not just wages. Complain all you want that you can't find people willing to work, but you won't work with an applicant's schedule availability or offer benefits that gives them an incentive to stay with you for 10+ years (right now, you have a better chance of economic advancement by changing employers every couple of years). If you want to know the source of your ills, try looking in the mirror rather than whine about what is wrong with the applicant pool.
Still, consider this. I know restaurants that pay much better than others, and if you don't bring your "A game" to work every day, they will replace you with someone who will. Higher pay = higher expectations. This model works because their competition is paying the least possible, and they can't really complain in what that attracts in regards to talent. Mandating higher base wages and benefits for any job creates problems with quality. I suppose you could simply fire bad workers and never hire questionable ones, but we are already in a place where you can be unemployable for any number of reasons gleaned from a pre-employment questionnaire with no follow up.
Keep in mind that in Henry Ford's time, you didn't have such an expansive welfare state, or as large a population with an "entitlement mentality." People knew if they didn't work, they didn't eat. A lot has changed since then, and I believe the failure of just raising the minimum wage is that it doesn't place equal expectation upon the worker to buck up and actually...well...WORK. If you are making minimum wage today and tomorrow it goes up to $15/hour, what are YOU going to do to enhance the value of what you offer to the employer? Nothing? Then why should that employer keep you in lieu of someone with a college degree who needs a job and is willing to do more? A key reason minimum wage jobs often don't go to "overqualified" people is because the boss knows that person will leave if they find anything better.
INSTEAD, what is needed is JOB CREATION.
Yeah, we've seen the creation of more minimum-wage jobs, but the idea is that the recent changes have shipped all the decent-paying jobs overseas....leaving nothing here but minimum wage jobs for most people. We've stopped creating good-paying jobs in the numbers needed to supply the number of skilled/semi-skilled workers in the marketplace. If we did much more job creation and stopped incentivising the shipping of good jobs overseas, we'd not need an increase in the minimum wage. It could remain as-is for the low skill, low effort jobs as there are plenty of better paying jobs for those people with the skills to work them.
07 Jul 2014, 11:23 am
zer0netgain wrote:
thomas81 wrote:
Can't disagree with anything he says. If even a 1 percenter gets it, why can't some of the hawks on this forum?
Maybe because NOTHING is ever that simple.
His reasoning is sound. Like Henry Ford, how many workers can afford the very product/service they are employed to produce? Not many, and THIS is why the middle class is dying in America.
The problem is that just raising the minimum wage WILL NOT solve the problem.
Henry Ford hired skilled/semi-skilled workers. A lot of jobs in America do not require any meaningful skill set. Any increase in minimum wage = bumping everyone elses' pay so that they aren't making qualitatively less than the new guy.
Quote:
Yup. But please, please stop insisting that if we pay low-wage workers more, unemployment will skyrocket and it will destroy the economy. It?s utter nonsense. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn?t believing that if the rich get richer, it?s good for the economy. It?s believing that if the poor get richer, it?s bad for the economy.
He say's it's nonsense...in reality the opposite is true...for the very reason he is writing the article in the first place. If the minimum wage goes up, employer want to cut hours/positions to compensate on the impact on their bottom line. Hence, higher minimum wage (under the current paradigm) = lost jobs.
I see this in many applications, not just wages. Complain all you want that you can't find people willing to work, but you won't work with an applicant's schedule availability or offer benefits that gives them an incentive to stay with you for 10+ years (right now, you have a better chance of economic advancement by changing employers every couple of years). If you want to know the source of your ills, try looking in the mirror rather than whine about what is wrong with the applicant pool.
Still, consider this. I know restaurants that pay much better than others, and if you don't bring your "A game" to work every day, they will replace you with someone who will. Higher pay = higher expectations. This model works because their competition is paying the least possible, and they can't really complain in what that attracts in regards to talent. Mandating higher base wages and benefits for any job creates problems with quality. I suppose you could simply fire bad workers and never hire questionable ones, but we are already in a place where you can be unemployable for any number of reasons gleaned from a pre-employment questionnaire with no follow up.
Keep in mind that in Henry Ford's time, you didn't have such an expansive welfare state, or as large a population with an "entitlement mentality." People knew if they didn't work, they didn't eat. A lot has changed since then, and I believe the failure of just raising the minimum wage is that it doesn't place equal expectation upon the worker to buck up and actually...well...WORK. If you are making minimum wage today and tomorrow it goes up to $15/hour, what are YOU going to do to enhance the value of what you offer to the employer? Nothing? Then why should that employer keep you in lieu of someone with a college degree who needs a job and is willing to do more? A key reason minimum wage jobs often don't go to "overqualified" people is because the boss knows that person will leave if they find anything better.
INSTEAD, what is needed is JOB CREATION.
Yeah, we've seen the creation of more minimum-wage jobs, but the idea is that the recent changes have shipped all the decent-paying jobs overseas....leaving nothing here but minimum wage jobs for most people. We've stopped creating good-paying jobs in the numbers needed to supply the number of skilled/semi-skilled workers in the marketplace. If we did much more job creation and stopped incentivising the shipping of good jobs overseas, we'd not need an increase in the minimum wage. It could remain as-is for the low skill, low effort jobs as there are plenty of better paying jobs for those people with the skills to work them.
summation: the greedy few (though not few enough, in my estimation) at the top ruin it for everybody--including, eventually, themselves.
07 Jul 2014, 12:31 pm
An alternate interpretation:
The dirty-rich in Seattle and the Bay Area didn't get to where they are by being sweethearts. Their rise was also debt-fueled. I have no opinion on whether a minimum wage drives inflation, but it's worth remembering that inflation benefits debtors. If the real worth of a dollar goes down, then so does the significance of a dollar's-worth of debt. (That's the principle behind Iceland's devaluation of their currency.)
07 Jul 2014, 1:08 pm
Ultimately, an angry mob does not care about the politics of the situation, and if the inequality continues to grow, mob mentality is going to overtake rational thought(it always does), and pitchforks, along with any other weapon available is going to remedy the situation. It always has, throughout history, but Americans think we are too smart and advanced to succumb to peasant rage.
07 Jul 2014, 1:49 pm
Disingenuous.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
_________________
After a failure, the easiest thing to do is to blame someone else.
thomas81
Veteran
Joined: 2 May 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,147
Location: County Down, Northern Ireland
07 Jul 2014, 2:01 pm
LoveNotHate wrote:
Disingenuous.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
This is an inherent problem within capitalism, not within the ideal of wealth redistribution.
Were it the case that not one person could own these production means, then the question of national loyalities vs self motivated profit would not even be an issue.
07 Jul 2014, 2:01 pm
LoveNotHate wrote:
Disingenuous.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
American business owners who close businesses in the US (move jobs to China) are not moving jobs to China in order to bring Chinese people out of poverty. The jobs are being moved to China to make more money. If they actually cared about the welfare of Chinese workers they would not be forcing them to work nearly 100 hour work weeks in conditions that are so bad that workers jump out of highrise building windows to kill themselves because their work is more tortuous than existence.
thomas81
Veteran
Joined: 2 May 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,147
Location: County Down, Northern Ireland
07 Jul 2014, 2:04 pm
khaoz wrote:
Ultimately, an angry mob does not care about the politics of the situation, and if the inequality continues to grow, mob mentality is going to overtake rational thought(it always does), and pitchforks, along with any other weapon available is going to remedy the situation. It always has, throughout history, but Americans think we are too smart and advanced to succumb to peasant rage.
They seem pretty fast to call the villagers whenever they percieve that someone is coming to grab their guns.
thomas81
Veteran
Joined: 2 May 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,147
Location: County Down, Northern Ireland
07 Jul 2014, 2:07 pm
khaoz wrote:
LoveNotHate wrote:
Disingenuous.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
American business owners who close businesses in the US (move jobs to China) are not moving jobs to China in order to bring Chinese people out of poverty. The jobs are being moved to China to make more money.
Exactly, what is more the reason is they are moving the jobs because in China they do not have to cover higher wages, or put up with rights won by western workers such as shorter hours, the right to three breaks a day or medical coverage.
By playing the capitalist game, workers are locked into a no win game which sees them in a race to the bottom to compete with third world workers where they are forced to accept lower salaries, less rights and generally shittier contracts. Meanwhile they are being double whammied at the other end, with an increasing price of living. You can only trim the fat off of both ends for so long.
The inherent problem is within the socio-economic system itself, not that the 1 percent are too greedy.
Last edited by thomas81 on 07 Jul 2014, 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
GoonSquad
Veteran
Joined: 11 May 2007
Age: 51
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,748
Location: International House of Paincakes...
07 Jul 2014, 2:09 pm
Great article. Too bad I haven't been advocating Neo-Fordism for years... Oh wait, I HAVE.
Here's the best part:
Quote:
Wal-Mart is our nation?s largest employer with some 1.4 million employees in the United States and more than $25 billion in pre-tax profit. So why are Wal-Mart employees the largest group of Medicaid recipients in many states? Wal-Mart could, say, pay each of its 1 million lowest-paid workers an extra $10,000 per year, raise them all out of poverty and enable them to, of all things, afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Not only would this also save us all the expense of the food stamps, Medicaid and rent assistance that they currently require, but Wal-Mart would still earn more than $15 billion pre-tax per year. Wal-Mart won?t (and shouldn?t) volunteer to pay its workers more than their competitors. In order for us to have an economy that works for everyone, we should compel all retailers to pay living wages?not just ask politely.
Here's the thing. Low wages cost taxpayers for medicaid, food stamps, and the earned income tax credit. It's basically CORPORATE WELFARE funneled through the working poor.
Bottom feeding employers like Wal-Mart need to pay higher wages or higher taxes, because, as the TeaParty likes to remind us, THERE'S NO FREE LUNCH.
_________________
No man is free who is not master of himself.~Epictetus
07 Jul 2014, 2:11 pm
thomas81 wrote:
khaoz wrote:
LoveNotHate wrote:
Disingenuous.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
This is not about fighting inequality. People would be angry if this guy moved his companies to China so some Chinese people could be brought out of poverty, or if he brought in cheaper foreign workers to replace his higher paid employees.
Many Americans would be arguing he is greedy, precisely because he is sharing wealth with the less well off.
This is about coveting his wealth for oneself.
American business owners who close businesses in the US (move jobs to China) are not moving jobs to China in order to bring Chinese people out of poverty. The jobs are being moved to China to make more money.
Exactly, what is more the reason is they are moving the jobs because in China they do not have to cover higher wages, or put up with rights won by western workers such as shorter hours, the right to three breaks a day or medical coverage.
By playing the capitalist game, western workers are locked into a no win game which sees them in a race to the bottom to compete with third world workers where they are forced to accept lower salaries, less rights and generally shittier contracts.
The inherent problem is within the socio-economic system itself, not that the 1 percent are too greedy.
Perhaps so, but the 1 percent, or a large percentage of the 1 percent ARE excessively greedy
thomas81
Veteran
Joined: 2 May 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,147
Location: County Down, Northern Ireland
07 Jul 2014, 2:14 pm
What is needed is an RBE such as technocracy coupled with energy accounting, not scientific management.
www.eoslife.eu
| Similar Topics | |
|---|---|
| How do the Rich/Wealthy keep getting Rich you know the sayin |
14 Aug 2015, 6:04 pm |
| Women liking rich vs not rich |
10 May 2016, 3:20 am |
| I don't want to be rich... |
06 Jun 2011, 4:44 pm |
| Why You Will Never Be Rich |
24 Mar 2018, 11:22 am |
