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I must disagree. You omit that important aspect of American labor - the overall cost to hire Americans.
For every $1 paid to a worker, how much must his labor cost, in the marketplace?
Ask any tech or skilled laborer who works for a company, that bills by the hour. A tech who might get $10 / hour, will incur a bill between $40 and $60 / hour by the company.
At first glance, you might conclude that those [expletive deleted] greedy !#$@#%#^ company owners are at fault. They're getting rich off the backs of the hard working laborers.
But if you ask the company owners, they will tell you the other side of the tale. How much do they have to pay, in workmen's compensation, business insurance, SocSec, State and Federal taxes, overhead, regulations, restrictions, health care insurance, dead time, transportation losses, and so on, for each worker they hire?
The culprit is a complex network of parasitical takers, imposed between the customer and the seller of goods and services.
Until you eradicate that "upcharge", you won't see any resolution.
Remember, the whole idea of mass production and technology was that the factory owner would take a percentage of each worker. For 5 - 10 - 20% per head, that's not too steep. But once you slap on the socialist overhead, taxes, regulatory overhead, and on and on, suddenly the cost swells to 200 - 300 - 400%. What you wind up with is a horde of takers, bureaucrats, paper pushers, record keepers, data entry clerks, all taking their cut of the action.
Never forget that the ultimate tax payer is the customer - who is the source of the money used to pay all those taxes, fees, salaries, costs, profits, and dividends.
Yet for some reason, they willingly spend a little bit of money on "certificates" and other measly awards, instead of giving the employee what they want, the whole reason that they even COME to work. Corporate America is more willing to pay the executives at the top of the food chain rather than spread it out to the workers.
I must disagree. You omit that important aspect of American labor - the overall cost to hire Americans.
For every $1 paid to a worker, how much must his labor cost, in the marketplace?
Ask any tech or skilled laborer who works for a company, that bills by the hour. A tech who might get $10 / hour, will incur a bill between $40 and $60 / hour by the company.
At first glance, you might conclude that those [expletive deleted] greedy !#$@#%#^ company owners are at fault. They're getting rich off the backs of the hard working laborers.
But if you ask the company owners, they will tell you the other side of the tale. How much do they have to pay, in workmen's compensation, business insurance, SocSec, State and Federal taxes, overhead, regulations, restrictions, health care insurance, dead time, transportation losses, and so on, for each worker they hire?
The culprit is a complex network of parasitical takers, imposed between the customer and the seller of goods and services.
Until you eradicate that "upcharge", you won't see any resolution.
Remember, the whole idea of mass production and technology was that the factory owner would take a percentage of each worker. For 5 - 10 - 20% per head, that's not too steep. But once you slap on the socialist overhead, taxes, regulatory overhead, and on and on, suddenly the cost swells to 200 - 300 - 400%. What you wind up with is a horde of takers, bureaucrats, paper pushers, record keepers, data entry clerks, all taking their cut of the action.
Never forget that the ultimate tax payer is the customer - who is the source of the money used to pay all those taxes, fees, salaries, costs, profits, and dividends.
Employers don't pay FOR laborers, SocSec, state, and fed taxes. Those deductions come out of the laborers pay and constitute the employees responsibility to government. Overhead such as heating, cooling, cleaning would be incurred even if a facility was totally automated, just to maintain the equipment. And workmen's compensation is incurred on a sliding scale based on the hazards and/or number of claims incurred on the job site. All customary costs of doing business. Boo Hoo.
Employers don't pay FOR laborers, SocSec, state, and fed taxes. Those deductions come out of the laborers pay and constitute the employees responsibility to government. Overhead such as heating, cooling, cleaning would be incurred even if a facility was totally automated, just to maintain the equipment. And workmen's compensation is incurred on a sliding scale based on the hazards and/or number of claims incurred on the job site. All customary costs of doing business. Boo Hoo.
Yep, I agree. Companies also hire contractors to supplement workforce temporarily and cut costs this way. You don't pay benefits to contractors and you negotiate their hourly or daily fee, in this situation the costs are pretty clearcut.
I think maybe the poster was referring to the cost of benefits that you would have to pay to the full time employees. And the entire liability issue (for which you get insurance anyway), but getting sued by the employee is unfortunately not something that is overly rare. I've heard some horror stories and small/medium businesses don't fare well in some of these situations.
But again, if you are a small business, you are not obligated to provide benefits, currently that is. Ideally, it would be great if medical insurance would stop being tied to the employer and there would be ways to create efficient pools (or one payer system pool) of group insured without employment specific ties. This would reduce the cost of doing business in the US, but I don't feel like derailing this thread with another controversial topic.
My fantasy world is kinda like what they imagined the future would be in the 50's; technology would do the menial jobs and people would be free to expand their intellects and enjoyment of life. But we would have to completely change our practically built-in drives for ever increasing wealth and find greater value in other pursuits than hoarding dollars for it to happen, and it seems like too big of a change in collective concious to be possible.
So, more likely government will expand to create more pointless filler jobs and start some more wars, more people will be poor and dependent on handouts, and the entertainment industry will work harder to keep us distracted. Eventually, it will all fall down and we will start again.
Great post and I absolutely agree with you. Ideally, we all would live in a sort of a utopian society where everyone would do the job of their liking and based on their talents and abilities and all this would nicely contribute to society. Ideally, we would just evolve into more and more sophisticated species, cure all diseases, extend our civilization to outer space, become more introspective and self-aware while the robots take care of our immediate needs. Sometimes you think if we are all freed from all the labor and even thinking (as we are inventing more and more sophisticatd computers we learn to rely on) would we become what is described in "The Orchid Cage" - a sci fi story by Herbert Franke?
Hope not. It seems like there are always going to be obstacles on the way to reaching utopia or the 'vegetative bliss' of "the orchid cage". Some obstacles we create ourselves like this poster points out and some are part of nature or more so the impact we have on it.
to the point on "pointless filler jobs". Yes, we have our fair share of these. Actually, we are making some simpler procedures and units of work more complicated in order to employ more people, some of it is due to greed. 'It takes a village' approach has become far too prevalent in many 'cubicle' industries due to increased bureaucracy, outsourcing, greedy 'vendors' and political struggles among overinflated middle management layer. When it took a small team of talented programmers to develop a system in the 90s now it takes a small company of strategy consultants, managers, auditors and doc writers and an entire slew of on-site off-site outsourced developers and testers many of whom don't talk to each other. Question is how do we improve efficiency without laying off masses of people who used to make a good living, some who have skills, experience and good education? We need to create new industries and hopefully not the 'non-profit' or government subsidized. We need the 'next big thing'.
Do you have to pay "benefits" for employees that don't want them?
In some cases you do, in some you don't. Working at power plants, when I worked "in house" I got a salary and the standard benefit plan, some places there were some choices on some benefits, but, the choices were pretty limited. When I worked contract, I got a higher hourly rate but no benefits at all. I bought my own medical insurance, "real" insurance with IIRC a $3000/year deductible, and paid my normal health care expenses (teeth cleaning, I think one filling, couple of trips to the doc for odds and ends) out of my own pocket.
Now in the power plant field, you can't generally work contract unless you have considerable experience.
Similar arrangements exist in other industries.
If you really want to control your compensation package, the best way is to work for yourself in an independent business. But of course the highs are higher, and the lows are lower...
I'm really don't understand what the problem is. You people are acting like this is a wheel that has to be invented by the Americans, because we have a unique manpower conundrum that has never arisen anywhere before.
Every culture in the history of the world has had its share of wankers, but life went on. Different cultures have resolved this issue in various ways. I don't understand why America, the shining beacon of virtue and rectitude, needs to be one of those draconian cultures who deals with the non-productive in ways that cause needless pain, discomfort and shame in a land of obscene plenty.
Use the collective productivity of the nation to see to it that everyone has food and shelter and dignity, pay higher level rewards to those who exhibit commendable industry, and get on with your lives, fer crissake.
I'm really don't understand what the problem is. You people are acting like this is a wheel that has to be invented by the Americans, because we have a unique manpower conundrum that has never arisen anywhere before.
Every culture in the history of the world has had its share of wankers, but life went on. Different cultures have resolved this issue in various ways. I don't understand why America, the shining beacon of virtue and rectitude, needs to be one of those draconian cultures who deals with the non-productive in ways that cause needless pain, discomfort and shame in a land of obscene plenty.
Use the collective productivity of the nation to see to it that everyone has food and shelter and dignity, pay higher level rewards to those who exhibit commendable industry, and get on with your lives, fer crissake.
Great answer! I think we need to just pull ourselves together and wait for the economy to improve. America (and other countries) have had their struggles in the past and eventually life has improved. I do hear of businesses starting to hire people now. Life will improve we just need to be patient.
Use the collective productivity of the nation to see to it that everyone has food and shelter and dignity, pay higher level rewards to those who exhibit commendable industry, and get on with your lives, fer crissake.
This is a feature of an advanced society that IMO we should strive for.
I also don't see a problem with providing everyone with the basics - basic shelter, healthcare, food. Providing basics to those who can't or don't want to work doesn't mean lavishing them with luxury, it's not like basic shelter, healthcare and food constitutes a great quality of life. I know I will work and work hard because I want much more from life than basics, so will the majority of population. We all have different idea of what level of wealth and power we want to achieve. so, let the wealthy be wealthy, let the poor be poor (but not be thrown on the streets like garbage).
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