Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thanks to Green_Mtn and ruuff for driving this into an off topic "wage discussion".
Anyway, thanks to those who provided some honest input and argument.
Hopefully, some will see the problems with perception getting rather far from reality.
Here's what you wrote when you posted your "reveal".
Quote:
Why is this important?
As the article says: "The public that believes in the fantasy-world of sky-high 36% profit margins would naturally think companies are just being greedy and stingy when don’t pay higher “living wages” and have to be forced to do so through minimum wage, or living wage, legislation"
Like so many who would obfuscate your real intentions, you not only don't have the intellectual honesty to admit what you were really posting about, you're evidently so used to obfuscating you can't even remember what you posted one page back. Sorry we didn't let you post your propaganda without comment.
Some have mentioned they are shareholders and don't want to see wages raised, good on you. As for me I put my money where my mouth is, I'm the majority shareholder in a private business and every employee is paid multiples of minimum wage. And no I'm not suggesting every business can or should do that, but many can do far better than they do, and it's deeply distorted that any company making billions and paying CEO's millions won't pay a better wage. I could pay less and take home even more but since I'm already an infamous "1 percenter" that would require a greed I have no desire to attain. I have no interest in engaging in moral justifications to pay myself ever higher sums of money if it means paying slave wages to others. And make no mistake, $7.25 an hour is a slave wage.
As someone once said, one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. And we see them in spades whenever this is discussed:
"These are starter jobs"
"The employee can leave any time"
"That money is the shareholders"
"They earn what they are worth"
And people try to come up with economic arguments about how it's bad for the economy, an argument which gets proven false every single time it's raised.
But the real reason is unadulterated greed, raking in fortunes, while paying people so little they cannot survive, and forcing them onto government assistance.
The good thing is that while the Walmarts of the world get all the attention, there actually are many companies that take pretty darn good care of their employees.
Quote:
I have a feeling for these people, if companies had merely a 0.01% profit margin, that the discussion would still be the same.
No it wouldn't be the same, the only reason it's an issue is precisely because of the extreme imbalance. But you know what's funny is I have a feeling the minimum wage could be $3 an hour and you'd still be against it. You'd like to see "the market work it out", right?
Well, at least that is the line of BS your American Enterprise Institute (and countless others) has been churning out for years. But again, it's all about lies and obfuscation - they never admit it's so businesses can pay workers as little as possible, it's because they care about all those minimum wage workers and are deeply concerned minimum wage is bad for them! Minimum wage is unfair and harms low wage workers, ya, that's the ticket! And they actually spew that BS out with a straight face.
You and I know that this thread is not about wages.
4 paragraphs later:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Transplanted99
This is about how "misperception" about the real world allows people to jump on board for policies that won't deliver their promises, and never will.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rruff
What policies are you talking about?
He sort of trapped himself there didn't he? He can't even keep his story straight from one paragraph to the next. It isn't about wages....oh wait it is...no it isn't....oh wait it is.
Here's what you wrote when you posted your "reveal".
Like so many who would obfuscate your real intentions, you not only don't have the intellectual honesty to admit what you were really posting about, you're evidently so used to obfuscating you can't even remember what you posted one page back. Sorry we didn't let you post your propaganda without comment.
Some have mentioned they are shareholders and don't want to see wages raised, good on you. As for me I put my money where my mouth is, I'm the majority shareholder in a private business and every employee is paid multiples of minimum wage. And no I'm not suggesting every business can or should do that, but many can do far better than they do, and it's deeply distorted that any company making billions and paying CEO's millions won't pay a better wage. I could pay less and take home even more but since I'm already an infamous "1 percenter" that would require a greed I have no desire to attain. I have no interest in engaging in moral justifications to pay myself ever higher sums of money if it means paying slave wages to others. And make no mistake, $7.25 an hour is a slave wage.
As someone once said, one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. And we see them in spades whenever this is discussed:
"These are starter jobs"
"The employee can leave any time"
"That money is the shareholders"
"They earn what they are worth"
And people try to come up with economic arguments about how it's bad for the economy, an argument which gets proven false every single time it's raised.
But the real reason is unadulterated greed, raking in fortunes, while paying people so little they cannot survive, and forcing them onto government assistance.
The good thing is that while the Walmarts of the world get all the attention, there actually are many companies that take pretty darn good care of their employees.
No it wouldn't be the same, the only reason it's an issue is precisely because of the extreme imbalance. But you know what's funny is I have a feeling the minimum wage could be $3 an hour and you'd still be against it. You'd like to see "the market work it out", right?
Well, at least that is the line of BS your American Enterprise Institute (and countless others) has been churning out for years. But again, it's all about lies and obfuscation - they never admit it's so businesses can pay workers as little as possible, it's because they care about all those minimum wage workers and are deeply concerned minimum wage is bad for them! Minimum wage is unfair and harms low wage workers, ya, that's the ticket! And they actually spew that BS out with a straight face.
Why do you feel the need to "fix" something which is not broken?
I did not mention GAAP in my previous post, nor did I state that anything illegal was going on.
I am speaking of the ways that companies authorize and allocate certain expenditures which are indeed aimed at reducing the reported gross profit margin. Tax shelters are a part of this as well.
Is this too complicated for you to understand?
Why do you politicize everything?
The employer's profit would not change if there was a universal wage increase, since their competition would be in the same boat. The MW could easily be double what it is, with essentially no effect on aggregate production, demand, or profits.
You are not taking into consideration Competition. This would drive a lot of jobs overseas, as the border line companies due to low profits, would have to pack it in.
High cost to do business areas such as California would be hit hard, as even more companies moved out of the state to remain competitive as they would have to raise their prices to the point that it kills business.
Quote:
Companies that unilaterally raise wages above the going rate for their industry are usually looking to attract and retain better employees, which will hopefully more than pay for itself in greater productivity, rather than give the current ones a gift out of the goodness of their hearts.
Due to higher profit margins some companies can raise wages without putting the business out of business, while others that work on small profit margins cannot.
Of course the corporations want to lower expenses. No rational person has an issue with that. The question is, what has happened to the opposing force? Why has the bargaining position of the worker declined so much, and with it the wages?
The OP and a lot of other people seem to believe that even though the profit margins are higher than they've ever been, they still aren't that high... so there is no way that wages could be increased a sizable amount. This shows a basic lack of understanding of economics. For instance if the minimum wage doubled, aggregate profits would not be effected at all. How is this possible? Because all the company's competitors would experience the same cost increase and increase prices accordingly. Increasing wages only has a *potential* detrimental effect if it is done in isolation and it puts the company at a competitive disadvantage. But many companies have found that it actually helps their bottom line by allowing them to attract better employees.
If you make a statement bold, at least make sure it doesn't contain a typo....
To second your last point, Ford is an example of using higher wages to attract and retain top talents. Today, Google is using the same tactic. Efficiency wage is the term.
To second another point of yours, if the minimum wage doubled, employees would all get more money to spend, and then the money will eventually circle back to corporations; the difference is that this time it passes through the employees via means of consumption. So there is nothing to lose and much to gain.
There is nothing to lose if your goal is to increase the wages of the working poor. The real wages of everyone with higher incomes would decline a bit.
Forcing a lot of companies to greatly increase wages, would be the biggest job killer this country has ever seen.
It would bring on automation faster than anything else you can imagine. Reducing jobs.
It would force companies in high cost to do business areas of the country to move either overseas, or to move to lower cost to do business areas in this country.
It would force many businesses to close their doors, due to the loss in business they would suffer when a lot of people were suddenly unemployed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
