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.
In that we agree.
What I propose would be that we learn to value people in general moreso than their paycheck. At least that has some foundation in being feasible.
Basically, there is also a bias against shorter people.
A campaign of education and appreciation has a chance of working.
Applying a chainsaw to shorten everyone to a mandate height would also work....in theory....
I sense your frustration, it sucks to be a starving artist. Even many of the greats only found success after passing.
OK, but I am not sure people can really change inside. There are studies suggesting that being tall for instance is considered a positive property. Maybe we can cover our stereotypes with PC and say short people are as precious as anybody else, etc. But our opinions won't go away as they are probably innate. I guess what we really think of someone shows for instance when we have 'normal' children and they want to get married to someone "inferior", be it in terms of size, income/social standing etc.
I am not a frustrated artist, I am not an artist at all actually, let alone frustrated
I agree every worker has a right to decide what is labor worth. OK, but the market is the one that decides in the end.
I can say my labor is worth $40/hour. However, if my labor is so expensive and what my boss produces by paying that money in end we end up without a job becuase other companies may sell the product for less because others get paid less. So in the end the market is the one that decides how much certain labor is worth. Why? Because the customer is the one that decides how much he wants to pay for the product. The odds? The customer will most likely go for the same product that costs less.
The last part of your message to me tends to be the rhetoric politicians do. It is interesting that nations that adopt the most capitalist system with the most market control are the countries that tend to have the highest standards of living, live longer, pay less taxes, and bigger houses, higher cloric intake, higher average of car ownership per family, etc. However, for the sake of argument let us say there is no middle class. Even than the so called poor in the USA today have a much higher standard of living that many people in the world not classified as poor. The lowest quintile in the US is based on a few criteria that is hotly debated regarding how to determine you are poor. You look very close and many 'poor' do not have it bad. They have a lot or more luxuries that probably most of the rest of the world. Many people around the world would wish to have all the things our poor have. I am not saying there are no poor people. There are and we as a society can find ways to help them. What I am saying that poor as it is classified to me is not a true reflection of the living standard of many of those that fall in this category.
You say that labor cost may start to go down. Well, of course it would but so would commodity prices in the products made by the worker so everybody will benefit. Letting the market work as it should would eventually bring the levels of labor cost and wages down to a certain level and it will keep verying with the market changes back and forth as it should be but still there would not be much artificial prices. Granted, anti-trust laws can be benficial when a giant corporation control the system. I have no problem with making sure they do not start to abuse the people. But when the government interferes to much all it does is make things worst. There is where I keep asking why do people keep demanding the government interfere knowing the government is the worst? It is like the blind leading the blind. Politicians do not have a good record and yet people want them to fix the economy by interfering at every little thing. You do not trust your money to three types of people, children, thieves, and politicians. Why? Because these three types of people get money from people that worked for it, not them so it is easy for them to spend somebody elses money.
Wal-Mart out business when the closed down? Really? Wal-Mart may have lost a store but the ones who got hurt were the people that got toghether to fight the company.
I have no problem either if people want to get together to demand higher wages either. However, I do not agree with the government getting in the middle of a dispute between workers and the company. Let them settle their differences. If the workers win, more power to them but if not it is just a good. It was their fight. Also, the workers should not get together and become thugs when others take the jobs they had because they did not show up for work to demand higher wages. They are also in essence stopping the company to keep running. That is a risk they take when they decide to go on strike. The company will also loose by having to hire and train people.
You have a great day.
El Amigo
You seem to have a firm grip on reality. The points you made, as I see it, is that labor is subject to the same supply and demand forces that other commodities are,
That the more capitalism a society has, the higher it's standard of living generallty is.
And that America's poor, are "poor" by International standards.
Poverty is not an absolute standard, it is merely a statisticial definition. As is the case with most phenomenom, when chartered on an x-y chart, you tend to get the classic bell curve with a large middle ground and two "tails", one on the lower side, and one on the higher side, of the middle.
In America, we define the lower tail as "poor", no matter how much they make. The definition of the poverty line is adjusted regularly, and in conformity to that curve.
America's rich are considered fairly well of by European standards. While I can't recall the specifics, it is amazing to see how many owned their own homes, have Color TV, air conditioning etc.
America's rich are considered fairly well of by European standards. While I can't recall the specifics, it is amazing to see how many owned their own homes, have Color TV, air conditioning etc.
Material World is a fascinating book that profiles statistically average families from all corners of the world. It's very thought-provoking and has inspired fascinating conversations with my children. I highly recommend it!
Wow, you should see how the blue collar guys are paid downunder ( Australia) $1000 a week just to hold the STOP sign for roadworks! All the tradies ( electricians, diggers, painters, roofers, yadda, yadda are LOADED, they all make at least $50 an hour.
Our miners are loaded to, $100,000 to drive the heavy equipment, they treat the manly men good downunder, we don't need any of that cheap immigrant labour.
When the working man can earn a good living and put in a good day of 'hard yakka' ( Aussie speak) is shows alot about a society I reckon.
You Yanks, treat most of your workers like slaves
There is not dispute that every job is important. Everbody does his part. Again, who do you want to control what wages should be paid?
What is that some reflection you are talking about?
To me it seems you have socialist inclinations by expecting people to be paid not so much by the demands of the market by social morality.
If that is the case I do not agree with you. Countries that have tried your concept have failed. As far as unions, I am sure that people that are in unions do get better pay than those that do not. However, in the end the people paying for it is the customer in higher commodity prices. If EVERBODY was getting union wages I believe this would result in exorbitant prices when you pay for food transportation, home construction, etc. If EVERYBODY was getting union wages there is not way that as a nation we could afford such system. EVERYTHING would be more expensive. Actually, the US would have to enforce protectionism because the customer would go and buy things that are produced much cheaper in other countries so we would not allow much on imports. We cannot isolate ourselves from the rest of the world markets because we want to make sure we protect our wages. The rest of the world would retaliate and we would hurt because we do depend on many things the rest of the world can offer to us. We also depend on exports but if our products are to expensive because we have all these inflated wages compared to the rest of the world we could not sell our products. This time in history is not unique at all with what is going on on in the global economy. There is a great book entitled "A Spledid Exchange" It is about the history of world trade since the beginning of recorded history all over the world. You can see how people have had trade wars and how nations have used protectionist laws that in the end hurt more than help.
That is the problem I have with unions. Yes some will benefit but in the long picture the rest of the people hurt.
However, when you say about wages that reflect the social contribution to people has proven that it hurts than help. But for the sake of argument, please tell me who should determine what every type of trade, profession, etc. should pay?
The point, again, is not whether people work hard at every type of work. The point is that the market dictates what are the needs the people request to take care of their lives. They people demand what toys, cars, food, etc. will satisfy them. Based on that some people will produce certaint things and other people will not make as much money because their products may not sell.
So, who do you want to dictate wages?
You have a great day.
El Amigo
I never claimed to have an answer to this, I was simply pointing out that letting the market define everything makes a lot of things fall through the cracks. While letting the market define everything is efficient for money circulation that's where it stops - right and wrong, what should be and ought to has no bearing on it whatsoever. In other words, just because the market agrees, doesn't make it right.
As far as who dictates wages, that exists in capitalism just the same. Only that who dictates the bare minimum that people need to exist.
If you're referring to communism/socialism that has failed in other countries one must point out the flaws they were built on. They were not genuine articles - also, there was a time that the whole western world fought long and hard to stomp out communism - which probably didn't help the matter any.
This is a system created by and run by imperfect humans.
There will always be someone who is working who thinks their pay is unfairly low for the work they do.
And it may well be true in some cases.
Just like certain people get paid millions for unnecessary jobs.
That is why the American way is to rise up to the top so you can delegate work and get more pay than all your subordinates put together.
I do not like it either. But enough people are satisfied with it to stop it from going anywhere.
Since the free market system is based on voluntary exchanges of products and labor, I see no problem with people, or groups of people (i.e., unions), withholding their labor in exchange for higher wages. If the good folks at Wal-Mart collectively decide that they should be getting paid triple for their labor, and form a union and go on strike in order to obtain what they want, then that's the free market at work, as those people are only willing to part with their labor if they're getting paid x-number of dollars, and no less.
Of course, if this happened in reality, Wal-Mart would probably close their stores outright, like the one they closed in Quebec when the workers formed a union at one of their stores up there. But then they'd be out of biz....lol.
The point I'm making, though, is that every worker has the right to decide what his or her labor is worth - if someone is willing to work for min wage, and shows up for work every day to collect that wage, that's fine and dandy, so long as they do so voluntarily. But if he or she gets together with their co-workers and decide that their labor is worth $14 an hour and no less, then they have every right to withhold that labor until their employer pays up.
If people of 100 years ago didn't think this way, I seriously doubt we'd be where we are today, and if current trends continue (decreasing value of labor), I suspect we'll eventually revert to the days prior to the 20th century, with virtually no middle class - just a few rich and the rest being poor. That's not the kind of world I want to live in - do any of you?
I'm looking forward to the day a cost accountant's job is made obsolete by a $12 computer program bought at Staples, or out sourced to some third world nation. Then we'll see how much THEY'RE worth.
I actually already wrote a plan for a program that could pretty much put 75% of the people of my company out of a job.
And a lot of service jobs are susceptible to that.
I have a hunch our engineering department has already come up with something.
And its going to be implemented soon.
So back to school for me for a skilled trade.
Sick of corporate anyway.
Wow, you should see how the blue collar guys are paid downunder ( Australia) $1000 a week just to hold the STOP sign for roadworks! All the tradies ( electricians, diggers, painters, roofers, yadda, yadda are LOADED, they all make at least $50 an hour.
Our miners are loaded to, $100,000 to drive the heavy equipment, they treat the manly men good downunder, we don't need any of that cheap immigrant labour.
When the working man can earn a good living and put in a good day of 'hard yakka' ( Aussie speak) is shows alot about a society I reckon.
You Yanks, treat most of your workers like slaves
Isnt the cost of living there pretty high as compared to the average US city?
(outside of NY, LA, Miami, etc.)
A friend of mine who works really really hard doing really physically draining highway maintenance work is paid poorly. He comes home from work emotionally and physically drained. But at the end he is just making enough money for basic survival. Another friend of ours makes close to $100K as a Cost Accountant. The job is not too hard for him but the bosses are pleased with his work. He got the job because he studied hard in school and got a Masters Degree in Accounting and has become an expert in Cost Accounting.
But should he make three times as much sitting in an office in 72 comfort in his own office as our other friend who makes 30K for busting his butt on the highway road project in extreme weather?
Just come to australia where a contract labourer can earn up to $80-90k a year. A dont get me started if you have a trade, 120k up is what you are looking at for a fully qualified professional. Way more than you average accountant, nurse, lawyer or even a juniour doctor!
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.
