The Top Earners in America should be embarrassed.

Started by Brian37, February 19, 2013, 07:14:47 AM

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Johan

Quote from: "Nonsensei"
Quote from: "Johan"I must be some kind of corporate shill or something because you've lost me completely on their one. The mega corporations don't do anything to lift the wages off the middle class? Of course they don't. Since when was that part of their charter? Their purpose is to make a profit. Period.

I want to live in a world where any woman I find attractive will cheerfully and willingly perform oral sex on me anytime I ask. But you don't see me complaining because they won't.

In order for your analogy to be relevant we would have to be living in a world where women simply never give blowjobs as a rule.
Well I know a few guys who would argue that we already live in just such a world.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful

Brian37

Quote from: "Johan"I must be some kind of corporate shill or something because you've lost me completely on their one. The mega corporations don't do anything to lift the wages off the middle class? Of course they don't. Since when was that part of their charter? Their purpose is to make a profit. Period.

I want to live in a world where any woman I find attractive will cheerfully and willingly perform oral sex on me anytime I ask. But you don't see me complaining because they won't.

So just because they have a goal doesn't mean they are the only class in this country. I mean seriously thanks for the update as if we didn't know that their goal is making a profit? So should that mean the rest of society should just take it and be their minions and mere tools? "Fuck you I got mine", is that what you are advocating?

This isn't about owing or complaining, this is about an economic ecology. You shit in the toilet long enough it gets clogged for everyone.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." Obama
Poetry By Brian37 Like my poetry on Facebook Under BrianJames Rational Poet and also at twitter under Brianrrs37

Mathias

Not to mention that they often prefer to throw money away than losing a just cause, as are the cases of poisoning made ??by Shell in various places of the world or the worst case I know, the chemical leak in Bhopal, India, that killed about 2.5 thousand people and injured more than 100,000!
The Union Carbide abandoned the city indemnified !


What would happen to a citizen who killed 2500 people?
"There is no logic in the existence of any god".
Myself.

wolf39us

wouldn't raising the overall minimum wages for the American people ALSO raise profit for companies indirectly?

Mister Agenda

As a former minimum wage earner, it was my experience (twice) that prices for necessities like food and clothing went up enough to cancel out my raise within a couple of weeks. You know, things a lot of minimum wage earners are involved in the production of, and which minimum wage earners spend a higher percentage of their income on. How do you think companies pay for across-the-board wage increases?
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

Plu

Quote from: "Johan"
Quote from: "Plu"
QuoteI must be some kind of corporate shill or something because you've lost me completely on their one. The mega corporations don't do anything to lift the wages off the middle class? Of course they don't. Since when was that part of their charter? Their purpose is to make a profit. Period.

The question isn't "Is it their purpose" (because of course it is), the real question is "should it remain so?".

That's the mindset most people are discussing in, that it shouldn't remain so.
So they question whether or not business should be profit driven? Fair enough. Tell you what then, you build your own mega corporation and then convert it to something that isn't profit driven and let me know how it works out for you.

This sounds like the same kind of defeatist "well you can't change anything from how it is right now" attitude I've seen you using before. Especially the part where you silently changed it from "a corporation that isn't driven by profit" when we originally talking about a company that "isn't driven entirely by profit".

The second problem is of course, whether having megacorps is a good idea at all. After all, they are more or less the death of capitalism, which is built around the idea that anyone can get in the market and compete, which isn't the case.

SvZurich

Yep!  More money at the bottom means more money turning the economic engine.

Kimmie, who has resumed working on her Economics degree.
Kimberly (HSBUH) aka Baroness Sylvia endorses the Meadow Party's Bill N' Opus for the 2024 Presidential election! Or a Sanders/Warren ticket.

Brian37

Quote from: "SvZurich"Yep!  More money at the bottom means more money turning the economic engine.

Kimmie, who has resumed working on her Economics degree.

Suzie Orman is no slouch. Warren Buffet says his secretary is getting screwed. And billionaire Nick Hanour says more money in our hands(middle class and working poor) is what drives demand) meaning a business wont hire one more person they have to unless demand goes up. He says, and rightfully so, that the middle class and working poor the "99%" make up the bulk of demand.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." Obama
Poetry By Brian37 Like my poetry on Facebook Under BrianJames Rational Poet and also at twitter under Brianrrs37

SvZurich

Yep, and instead our policies concentrate money at the top where it is sat upon and not used.  Even caps the amount of Social Security the wealthy pay.
Kimberly (HSBUH) aka Baroness Sylvia endorses the Meadow Party's Bill N' Opus for the 2024 Presidential election! Or a Sanders/Warren ticket.

Johan

Quote from: "Brian37"So just because they have a goal doesn't mean they are the only class in this country. I mean seriously thanks for the update as if we didn't know that their goal is making a profit?
Well apparently you didn't know. Because I can see no other logical reason why you would've said what you did unless you really didn't understand that business' are supposed to be profit driven. That's kind of how free enterprise works. If you want to large corporations to be more charitable and to pay their minions better, then the way you do that is by only buying from companies that are charitable and pay well. The way you don't do it is by day dreaming about what a great world it would be if large corporations were nicer and made it easier for you to get ahead.

QuoteSo should that mean the rest of society should just take it and be their minions and mere tools?
Well yes and no. Society has the choice to do that if they so desire. And indeed, there are many who choose that option and seem quite happy with their choice. But if you don't want to go down that road, you also have the choice of doing something else. Design a better mouse trap, learn to manufacture it for a profit and market it effectively and then hire minions of your own and treat them as you see fit. Sure seems to make a lot more sense to me than complaining that its hard and whining that it would be easier if someone else made it easier for you. No one made it easier for them when they were starting out. So what makes you so special?

I guess it just comes down to the fact that I learned early on that I've always gotten further by finding a way to play within the existing rules of the game and/or find a way to use those existing rules to my own advantage than I ever got by complaining that the rules weren't fair and hoping the powers that be would change the rules so as to make it easier for me while offering no real advantage to them.

QuoteThis isn't about owing or complaining, this is about an economic ecology. You shit in the toilet long enough it gets clogged for everyone.
It sounds like you need to bone up on plumbing and septic systems.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful

The Skeletal Atheist

QuoteI guess it just comes down to the fact that I learned early on that I've always gotten further by finding a way to play within the existing rules of the game and/or find a way to use those existing rules to my own advantage than I ever got by complaining that the rules weren't fair and hoping the powers that be would change the rules so as to make it easier for me while offering no real advantage to them.
Kind of hard to play the game when someone else has all the cards and refuses to deal them.
Some people need to be beaten with a smart stick.

Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid!

Kein Mitlied F�r Die Mehrheit!

Johan

Quote from: "The Skeletal Atheist"
QuoteI guess it just comes down to the fact that I learned early on that I've always gotten further by finding a way to play within the existing rules of the game and/or find a way to use those existing rules to my own advantage than I ever got by complaining that the rules weren't fair and hoping the powers that be would change the rules so as to make it easier for me while offering no real advantage to them.
Kind of hard to play the game when someone else has all the cards and refuses to deal them.
Wah!!!!! The big bad corporations won't give me any cards. Wah!!!!! I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be difficult to find lots of successful companies that weren't handed any cards from anyone and still found a way to get started and become successful. No one gave them handouts. Why should anyone give one to you?

No one said the rules were fair. The rules were never fair and they never will be. Complaining does nothing. Jump in and find a way to make it work or put on a Hawaiian shirt and go live under a picnic table.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful

The Skeletal Atheist

Quote from: "Johan"
Quote from: "The Skeletal Atheist"
QuoteI guess it just comes down to the fact that I learned early on that I've always gotten further by finding a way to play within the existing rules of the game and/or find a way to use those existing rules to my own advantage than I ever got by complaining that the rules weren't fair and hoping the powers that be would change the rules so as to make it easier for me while offering no real advantage to them.
Kind of hard to play the game when someone else has all the cards and refuses to deal them.
Wah!!!!! The big bad corporations won't give me any cards. Wah!!!!! I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be difficult to find lots of successful companies that weren't handed any cards from anyone and still found a way to get started and become successful. No one gave them handouts. Why should anyone give one to you?

No one said the rules were fair. The rules were never fair and they never will be. Complaining does nothing. Jump in and find a way to make it work or put on a Hawaiian shirt and go live under a picnic table.
Did I say anything about handouts? No, I didn't.

People wouldn't need "handouts" if they were paid a decent enough wage to live with dignity. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur, does that mean they deserve to be exploited? Fuck no!
Some people need to be beaten with a smart stick.

Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid!

Kein Mitlied F�r Die Mehrheit!

Plu

I'd love to buy only from companies that do something for society. But even though I make a good wage, I can't afford to. I'm already having to cut back on groceries because it's one of the few things I spend more than barebones minimum on.

Johan

Quote from: "The Skeletal Atheist"Did I say anything about handouts? No, I didn't.

People wouldn't need "handouts" if they were paid a decent enough wage to live with dignity. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur, does that mean they deserve to be exploited? Fuck no!
Jobs are worth what they're worth. Supply and demand and greed are ultimately what sets prices on the retail side. Sell for the highest price the market will allow. Supply and demand and greed are also what set the price on the wage side. Pay your labor the lowest price possible to maintain productivity and an acceptable employee turnover rate.

This is how it has always been. And yes, paying more in wages then the lowest rate the job pool will allow is the same as giving a handout. If you feel you're being paid a wage that exploits you, then you have two fixes. One is near term, the other is long term. The near term fix is to move. Get out of the business (whatever business that is) and find another. Why do you think I don't fly airplanes for a living anymore? The pay sucked and the working conditions sucked. So I moved on and found something else.

And the long term fix? The only part of the job pool supply and demand equation we have any control over is supply. Keep it in your pants and encourage everyone you know to do the same and eventually, demand will outgrow supply in more industries and wages will therefore go up.

That's how its always been. Its how it always will be. You can go live in a tent on the street with a bunch of hippies and potheads as some sort of facacta protest if it makes you feel better. But you're not going to change what motivates decisions of large corporations.

If you're more rational and proactive than the potheads and hippies you might even be able to persuade our government to change some laws which govern what large corporations do. I doubt anyone would be able to pull this off, but its at least possible in theory. But even if you did get the laws changed so as to require corporations to pay more and/or 'be interested in improving education and reducing crime' as Brian seems to thing they should in the OP, you still wouldn't be able to make them want to do those things. They would do it because the law says so. But you're not going to change their culture. And since we now live in a world market, I would suspect the net effect of such laws would simply be for more and more of those corporations to board up the windows and move their operations to other countries where the laws are more to their liking. Choose your actions carefully would be takeaway from that I suppose.

Which brings me back to what I said earlier. The rules of the game do indeed change a bit over time. But the rules were never fair and they never will be and with extremely rare exceptions, neither you nor I will ever change them. Learn accept the cards you've been dealt in life and find way to work those cards so as to make yourself sufficiently happy.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful