View Full Version : the $15/hr question
i want to say that a traditional liberal and someone who has worked lots of lower wage jobs i really like the idea of this, and then i get into (probably personal) sour grapes. basically how many other jobs make $15 or barely above that. my job pays mid-$16/hr plus benefits, more than half of us have college degrees and a few masters degrees. i have spent almost 5 years in my department working up from $13.50. i just put in 12 hours yesterday because i leave when it is done not when my shift is over (don;t worry i am taking half of today off, but still over 40 a week). the expectations of my job are a high responsibility for many areas. i pay specialized after school instructors about $14 an hour. the math instructors at our school make maybe $20K. Para educators are lucky to get above $10, special ed paras earn more but are not always guaranteed jobs year to year. A lot of teachers do long term sub positions with no benefits on the hopes they will get a permanent teaching job, and those pay low as well. and adjunct professors are lining up at food banks.
i am for higher basic wages, mostly i am for changing some of the horrible scheduling practices in low wage jobs (no consistent schedules, hours lowered without a reason, these really affect working families trying to juggle child care) maybe the push for $15 will affect pay rates overall but there is a bigger picture here.
iris lilies
4-23-15, 10:52am
So what is your point, those with masters' degrees should earn more than the $15/hr schmucks?
the numbers you cite are consistent in my field. I remember the days of split shifts--you go into work for 4 hours, then go home for 4' then come back for the night shift. It didn't hurt me when I was young and single, and really, since I was not responsible for children, that kind of schedule could have gone on indefinitely.
So if the minimum wage is raised to $15 and your budget remains unchanged how many people will you need to lay off?
i think we do need to raise wages for our lower wage workers, but it is perfectly acceptable to say that advanced education relevant to the field you are working in should increase earnings. if all my staff moves to $15 and i stay at $16 for my level of work and education then hopefully companies and organizations will raise those wages as well. the mind-set a lot of times in fields like non-profits and education is that we love our work so much that we are fine with earning less. CEO's of non-profits make a lot less, there is ted talk on this. i don't expect to earn as much comparably as some fields like science and engineering, but i want to make sure the discussion includes a bigger picture of earning issues.
the shift issue is more about changing them often and without workers having much say because their hours will get cut. when i worked in retail you could only rarely request certain consistent shifts. i was moved all over which made childcare huge, i couldn't reasonably pay childcare if i got my hours cut in half one week and then scheduled to work full time hours all over the place. that has been pretty standard. have staff work split shifts, it is consistent hours and shifts. if we have extra training during their off hours then we offer a few times or excuse people with school or small children as necessary. the staff knows their shift at the beginning of the school year and number of hours to expect. that is different than 7 am -3 pm, then 4- 10 and then 12-8, with at most 2 weeks notice.
Does that make sense?
LDAHL, i don't honestly know, i work for grant funding so if the grant did not increase at the federal level i would either seriously reduce programming, start recruiting volunteers (not a good choice, very big range of quality there) and i would lose at least 1/2 a position. we have enough attrition that staff may need to move sites but we would not have to lay off. it would also mean that i would be in programming more hours, have fewer hours to do the same work and at the same pay. it sounds like a lot of very large companies would be able to manage the pay increase in different ways,
just wanting to look at a bigger picture
But shouldn't the bigger picture reflect how organizations would adapt to a mandated shift in their cost structures? Some of the ways organizations would manage the change would include automating more tasks, outsourcing labor, simply closing down unprofitable or unaffordable operations or raising prices/taxes.
i did think that maybe fewer of my families would be on scholarships and therefore raising how much we bring in. i do school based childcare and enrichment, partially parent fees and partially grant funding. i would hope that between the 2 changes i could keep up the same programming. outsourcing and automating in my case doesn't seem likely. But i am a Gen X generation, we have been hearing both trickle down and that we should wait until boomers retire to get some more opportunities. i don't have a lot of faith ya know.
However i also hope that many of us would see increases, i did spend 2 really hard years studying and have student loan payments that should be $400 a month.
ApatheticNoMore
4-23-15, 12:22pm
If your unionized and your union can't even get you more than that, does your union actually do anything or just collect dues? Yes raising the wages of lower income workers is likely to lead to raising that of higher income workers (at least those near that wage amount) because they will have to compete with it. Also one has to be absolutely certain they would never BE a low income worker because if there is any chance of them ending up there they will be darn glad the minimum wage is higher.
the mind-set a lot of times in fields like non-profits and education is that we love our work so much that we are fine with earning less.
When I hear that mindset I think SCREW LOVING YOUR WORK. Go into the private sector and get paid for your work. Of course there are often things like pensions and so on in the public sector so there is that as well to consider, if there are that makes your hourly wage MUCH higher than you think (private sector workers with their 401ks and higher paychecks can almost NEVER save the equivalent of what a pensions pays out).
there is not a union that covers childcare workers, anyone want to create one? i don't have time for it.
i will hope that the wage increase will affect many of us, that may be an assumed outcome but so far i have not heard it part of the conversation.
ApatheticNoMore
4-23-15, 1:16pm
i don't have time for it.
probably deliberate, work people so hard they don't even have time to unionize.
you didn't answer if you have a pension, not that it's any of our business either way of course, it isn't. I'm merely saying if you do and if those higher paid private sector workers aren't already jealous of you for that now, they will be in the long run! There are net present value calculations to figure out how much a pension is worth now, but I think they almost certainly understate it if they don't account fully for risk, because working people are taking far more risks to get any return on their retirement money now that they really should be, as they are gambling with money they can't actually afford to lose (they aren't rich enough to afford to lose it mostly), just because interest rates are close to zero.
Well, it seems to littlebittymee that any money that is not paid out in wage and benefit expense, after other costs, finds its' way into the personal fortunes of the Walton Family, several of whom have been on short lists of The Wealthiest People for a long time! So, why should absentee owners of a department store chain that now practically runs itself, and has resources galore to over-expand the empire to the point that stores actually compete with each other in some markets, have waaay, waaaay more money still coming in than they will ever need, pretty much at the expense of the hard-working people who staff the stores? Huh? I mean, would you feel SORRY for a poor little Walton great-great-great grandchild who "only" had $100 million, instead of a couple billion at their disposal, when they turned 21? I didn't think so. Vote Packy in 2016.
Another adjustment businesses can make is to stop paying the C suite millions. Cut them down to a few hundred thousand a year and put the savings towards the $15 worker bees
Another adjustment businesses can make is to stop paying the C suite millions. Cut them down to a few hundred thousand a year and put the savings towards the $15 worker bees
One problem with that would be that there are not enough corporate officers making enough money that confiscating most of their income would move the needle significantly for the general population. Another would be that it would require government to step in and take control of organizations whose owners have up to this point shown little interest in imposing egalitarian pay schedules. Do enough of that, and eventually you're North Korea.
Yeah, right. Pay WalMart Cashiers a living wage & give them 40+ hours, and all of a sudden it's North Korea? Godless Com'nizzum, instead of Land O' The Free & eligible for Medicade and Food Stamps? Another thing I get tired of is hearing slightly over-educated people complaining that they hate having uneducated store clerks make more than they do. Well--Ms Masters Degree--go work at Wally Hell, and see that you are definitely comparing apples to oranges. It reminds me of my grade-school teacher complaining about how coal-miners made more than TWICE what she did, as if it was a classic example of unequal-pay-for-equal-work. Crazy. One major grocery company out of Sin City that had 4 stores here, close 'em up last Fall, after being in town since 1980. The employees were members of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union. I don't think any of them were getting rich, but made enough for quite a few to of them stay on 10-20-30 years. The parent company owns many stores, nationwide, and has been posting major profits & their stock prices have gone up and up. The CEO had been making $16 millon, his last year with the company & admitted it was too much. Anyway, the store was a very good place to shop, with sale prices on a lot of good stuff. Now, we have mainly Wally-Hell, and also a local chain that took over two of the stores that closed--and the employees are non-union and the prices are sky-high! It's the best of both worlds, for business--high prices, low wages! I am not advocating an extreme, here; I'm just saying that a very lucrative business should be compensating the experienced, full-time employees fairly, instead of as little as possible. See? Regarding the subject of people who are overpaid, you should find out what who really benefits from higher education. It is the ones who are in the business of providing it! Every now and then, I sneak a peek at a big, thick book called the "Zurra Manual". In it, are listed the salaries and wages of all state employees--including those at the very large State University system. Got a High IQ & halfway decent interpersonal skills? There is where the good-paying jobs are; all you need is the credential: a Doctorate or maybe even a Masters will do, to start. Those People are making excellent salaries; if they live their lives right, they have the potential to retire early & wealthy.
But what happens to the people that aren't worth $15 hour?
But what happens to the people that aren't worth $15 hour?
How DO you put a value on people's worth? Is a baseball player worth millions? Is a hedge fund manager worth millions?
When I conduct an interview--1 interview that lasts less than 1 hour--I earn $125--probably more than Zoe earns in a day mentoring and teaching students. Is that fair? Am I worth that much? Is my work more valuable than Zoe's? I doubt it.
The arbitrary prices the market winds up placing on people's labor often devalues their worth, because the employers are out to maximize their profits and the employee often has no power unless they are part of a union. In my opinion, a good working economy would enable all people who work full time to be able to reasonably provide for their families. Today's minimum wage does not do that. You try living on $8.00 an hour. If society sanctions suppressing living wages in order to maximize profits, you inevitably create an underclass and society will bear the burden of that one way or another.
Now if someone does not perform the minimum standards of their job, then they are not worth their keep, no matter what they're paid, but that's another story.
Now if someone does not perform the minimum standards of their job, then they are not worth their keep, no matter what they're paid, but that's another story.Or if they do not provide an adequate return on the investment of their time.
ApatheticNoMore
4-23-15, 8:46pm
Or if they do not provide an adequate return on the investment of their time.
or the cheapest possible return, companies don't necessarily outsource because all their employees are wastes of money as is ... it's just cheaper ... It reaches the point of complete absurdity when literal monopolies who don't even have any competition lay off their employees for cheaper, like Edison.
i will say that i do not go to fast food place almost ever because a lot of the staff and even managers are not so competent. my son works a fast food job and i think he is great, but quite a few times i have interacted with someone that can't tell me food ingredients and doesn't even try to ask or look, which is a huge deal for food issues. However if we are paying a higher wage then maybe the standard of staff will settle itself. i know plenty of people who do a good job in these jobs but i don't often get them serving me,
our department talked about a training wage. our lowest wage that was intended for people to work at while they got enough experience hours and training, and it was expected to last something like 3 months. that is an option i think in the $15 discussion. it is not intended for people who have worked at other fast food jobs, just the very first job to find out the basics, are you showing up, are you prepared to work, etc. And it isn't as hard to say it isn't working out as compared to the process needed to fire someone in most companies.
The pay ratio of CEOs to unskilled workers in the USA is 350:1. Cutting one CEO's pay by half would allow 350 workers to go from $7.50 to $15.00 per hour.
Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_how_equal_do_we_want_the_world_to_be_yo u_d_be_surprised?utm_campaign=ios-share&utm_medium=social&source=twitter&utm_source=twitter
Edited to correct my wrong math :)
Tammy, not to mention that the ratio of CEO's to unskilled workers has drastically changed over the last few decades. It was only 20:1 back in 1965. http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise Imagine the shock and horror of today's ceo's if they were expected to be able to survive on $800k/year.
I suppose some people will argue that the value of CEOs has gone up 15 times more than employees over the last 50 years because company valuations have gone up that much, or something. But those same people making that argument would ignore that company valuations are probably going up so much because the federal reserve has been cranking out absurd amounts of "money" for decades now and that money has mainly been chasing up the prices of assets like stocks. If I had to guess I'd bet that the money supply today, adjusted for inflation, is probably at a minimum15x more than it was in 1965. The increase in money supply is probably significantly more than that and the only reason ceo salaries haven't gone up even more is because all the debt that the federal reserve has created is causing a huge drag on the economy.
What about all those that are employed by small businesses? Many of the owners are not pulling in huge amounts.
And are minimum wage jobs really suppose to support a family? Aren't these low skilled jobs for someone starting out?
I wonder what it cost to pay someone $15 hr these days? After work men's comp, SS taxes, local taxes. Obama care taxes, ect.
What about all those that are employed by small businesses? Many of the owners are not pulling in huge amounts.
It's true that small businesses people are not necessarily raking in huge pools of money, but how often does paying a living wage break the bank?
Maybe we start with a premise: Let's abolish the term "unskilled labor." All labor demands SOME skill, and right away, you are making an assumption that your employee is bringing nothing but brainless brawn to the table, so they don't deserve much money. You are already devaluing their worth. Maybe being able to pay living wages and achieve high productivity (and profit) depends in large part on management. Remember Ben & Jerry's always paid their low-earning employees within a ratio of what the top earning employee made to maintain equity, and they didn't do badly.
Here's an interesting article from Forbes on four companies who pay their employees above minimum wage, can maintain competitive prices, and earn high profits.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/07/01/why-companies-that-pay-above-the-minimum-wage-come-out-ahead/
For many people, those low skilled jobs are effectively all they can hope for. People born into multigenerational poverty families, people born into inner city ghettoes, often suffer the effects of multigenerational maternal malnutrition. They also suffer the effects of societal shaming. Their junior and high schools are under-served, so they never gain real literacy skills. People whose fathers and grandfathers did well at semiskilled and skilled factory work or as dockworkers no longer have that option: the factories have been shuttered, and the jobs have been mechanized or gone overseas, where lower wages can be paid and the governments turn a blind eye to human rights abuses. These people do not, realistically, have a shot at management positions or even entry-level office positions. The deck is stacked against them from the day they're born.
Even for people with good educations, the middle class is an ever-receding horizon. My spouse has a master's degree in entomology, and is a well-respected scientist. I'm working on my master's in archaeology, paying my way with my savings over 14 years of employment. We'll never see the day that we're middle class in terms of income! We're not unique in our peer group. I know scientists who can't afford dental work. Jobs for our kind are continuously vanishing as schools shift their attention to the profit centres of human biology, which can yield patentable drugs or procedures, and computer science. Both research and teaching positions become fewer every year, and schools avoid tenure. Instead, they offer associate professorships, lectureships, and two-year postdocs that may or may not be renewable. Hours are deliberately kept just below or above the point at which benefits become mandatory. One of my professors recently told us about his previous work in a NGO: his salary was pegged $50 above the point at which he could get subsidized housing. Needless to say, that extra $50 did not make up the difference between the cost of the subsidized housing and that of the cheapest rental available to him. The postdoc positions offer less and less; once a postdoc could count on a reasonable stipend; now postdocs often have to write grant applications to get the money to do the job, and an applicant without a solid grant-getting background has zip chance of getting the job. I know postdocs who work unskilled jobs in the evenings and over weekends - and it's not for mad money.
People who earn more and have more time are more inclined to try to better themselves. If you're working three unskilled jobs to keep the rent paid and keep yourself fed, there's little energy or time to attend free classes at community college and start working your way up. People who're too scared to go back to school, having had a lousy experience in their youth, could have more leisure and perhaps even some disposable income. Those are not bad things. Nor is it a bad thing that students, a traditional labour pool for low-skilled jobs, could graduate with less student debt.
I'm in favour of paying a decent wage to chambermaids, burger flippers, toilet-cleaners, or bag packers. I'm not sure that they don't deserve higher wages than $15/hour, simply because their work is so unpleasant and because of the scorn with which they're regarded by the people who take their services for granted. Deliberately underpaying people for low-skilled jobs with the excuse that poverty will motivate them into seeking better work is a kick in the pants plus a slap in the face. It obfuscates the reality that people are being deliberately exploited in the sacred name of profitability.
How DO you put a value on people's worth?
By what a willing buyer pays a willing seller in a free exchange.
By what a willing buyer pays a willing seller in a free exchange.
Just like that old Animal Farm quote: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others," "willing" is relative term. For some "sellers" there might not be as much choice in their willingness as the buyers might have in theirs. So in many cases, it's not really a "free" exchange.
PS: Great post, Suzanne.
It obfuscates the reality that people are being deliberately exploited in the sacred name of profitability.
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
I think it's a mistake to conflate compensation with "worth" in a personal sense. Any work can have dignity. I probably take more pride in my non-profit work than I do my salaried work. If shareholders in a company are willing to pay high CEO salaries, that's really their call. If someone wants to pay Hilary Clinton $300K for a half-hour speech, that's their call too. In either case, they get to decide if they're getting value for their money.
If engineers or accountants earn more than entomologists or archaeologists, it's more due to the market for their services than some kind of personal value judgement.
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
Yes, under capitalism it's a given that man exploits man and man exploits nature, and that's creating some serious problems these days. Do we WANT a system that is based on exploitation?
Hopefully this is not too far afield, but I think that it's time for a different way. Yes, yes, yes, "capitalism isn't perfect, but it's better than the alternative" (the dreaded, evil Communism).
But can't we be more creative than assuming if it's not capitalism under its current state, it's Communism? Can we improve on capitalism by changing the metrics by which we measure GDP? There are a number of "natural capitalists" like Paul Hawken who have come up with better ways of executing capitalism in way that is less exploitative.
Can we move to a different economic model altogether? How about distributism? (Distributism, despite its misleading name, is NOT socialism--ie redistributing wealth. It's based on Catholic social justice, and is based on the widest possible ownership of property as the best guarantee of political and economic freedom. "The collective resilience of local economies is a more accurate barometer of national economic health than the stock market." (Quote from this excellent analysis (http://ethikapolitika.org/2014/08/19/distributism-basics-distributism-vs-capitalism/)of the difference between capitalism and distributism)
Just some thoughts. My own thought is that capitalism needs a major overhaul.
Just like that old Animal Farm quote: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others," "willing" is relative term. For some "sellers" there might not be as much choice in their willingness as the buyers might have in theirs. So in many cases, it's not really a "free" exchange.
PS: Great post, Suzanne.
Free is a condition. Fair is a subjective value judgement. If there is a large supply of a category of labor for which there is a declining demand, the market will clear at a level less favorable to the seller of labor. The seller may not like that, and demand that government force employers to pay above-market rates, create trade barriers or inhibit competition in the name of "fairness", But in doing so we grant a lot of arbitrary power to the political class.
I think rather than likening ourselves to North Korea in the event that we have C suite people earning "only" 15 times what worker bees earn, we could liken ourselves to our democratic socialist cousins in Europe. They have pretty good lives and far more wage equity.
Free is a condition. Fair is a subjective value judgement. If there is a large supply of a category of labor for which there is a declining demand, the market will clear at a level less favorable to the seller of labor. The seller may not like that, and demand that government force employers to pay above-market rates, create trade barriers or inhibit competition in the name of "fairness", But in doing so we grant a lot of arbitrary power to the political class.
In the book Why Nations Fail:The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, tthe overall hypothesis as to why nations fail is that they are or become extractive. Conversely, the remedy would be empowerment of a broad cross-section of the population:
What is common among the political revolutions that successfully paved the way for more inclusive institutions and the gradual institutional changes in North America, in England in the 19th century, and in Botswana after independence--which also led to significant strengthening of inclusive political institutions--is that they succeeded in empowering a fairly broad cross-section of society.
I'm sorry, but I don't see this type of broad empowerment. People feel disempowered today. You can argue that the system still works, but that message is not trickling down. When Citizen's United enables corporations to buy political clout, the power of the people to effect change in their lives is an illusion.
If "empowerment" means people voting to help themselves to other peoples' property, forcing their fellows into ill-conceived insurance schemes or adding "except for" clauses to the Bill of Rights I'm against it.
If it means equiping people for and allowing them to compete in a free market of ideas and commerce, I'm for it.
catherine
4-24-15, 12:45pm
If "empowerment" means people voting to help themselves to other peoples' property, forcing their fellows into ill-conceived insurance schemes or adding "except for" clauses to the Bill of Rights I'm against it.
If it means equiping people for and allowing them to compete in a free market of ideas and commerce, I'm for it.
I agree.
This employer was free to pay his employees whatever he wished, and his motivation was NOT profit:
http://u.pw/1zRPlar
Fine. That's a good way as any to give money away.
I don't understand all this sneering at "profit" as if it were some kind of obscenity.
Fine. That's a good way as any to give money away.
I don't understand all this sneering at "profit" as if it were some kind of obscenity.Well, since you said it first, I will say this: The grocery store chain executive that I mentioned in a prior post was born with the proverbial silver spoon, just like a Walton Heir. This is not to say that he did not make a contribution; he did so, by serving as CEO of a VERY profitable company. But by his own admission, being paid 16 million bucks for his last year on the job was more than even he felt he was worth! Especially in view of the fact that nearly 400 people lost their jobs on account of closing 4 "underperforming" stores, here. They were ordinary people working hard at a good(not great) wage negotiated by their union that was well above "market level" (as you say), or "poverty level", as everyone else would say! So---yes, I do believe that his profit was "Obscene", in view of all of that. Sure do.
Fine. That's a good way as any to give money away.
I don't understand all this sneering at "profit" as if it were some kind of obscenity.
Like with everything, I think it's how you do it that makes it "obscene" or not.
Fine. That's a good way as any to give money away.
I don't understand all this sneering at "profit" as if it were some kind of obscenity.
Anything in excess is obscene. And the problem with pure capitalism is it inherently doesn't recognize the obscenity of excess, although some of the founders of modern-day capitalism recognized it. Adam Smith and John Keynes both proposed "corrections" to vast inequality of wealth, and this was before there were huge multi-national corporations and Wall Street run amok. They surely couldn't have predicted the monster capitalism would create.
If profit is the ONLY bottom line, which it is in our current system, OK, people get paid, many have nice lives, many can live creative, entrepreneurial lives, and they benefit from the prosperity. But there's collateral damage. Stockholders don't go to meetings to ask how the environment is faring, or how many people had no choice but to work 60 hour weeks for low pay. To your earlier point, they don't ask "is it fair or ethical"--they ask "how much did you make me?" There is simply an inherent danger in that.
Capitalism isn't evil, and profits aren't evil--we all have to make a buck, but I get very suspicious of a system that is built only on profit as the bottom line. In that situation, we need regulation and oversight, checks and balances, and corrections when necessary.
Profit isn't evil, even if it is the sole motivation for operating an enterprise. What is problematic is unrealistic expectations of ongoing high profit margins without consideration of market fluctuations. What makes that worse is the short term nature of quarterly reporting that in many ways handcuffs the management regarding long range planning that, in the end, could actually be beneficial to both shareholders and employees.
Every year I read more interviews with people who start a venture to do what they love and/or to promote their version of altruism. For the most part these people say they want to earn a decent living, but there isn't much mention of fantastic accumulation. I don't really know how big a movement it is to regard all employees more as partners than worker bees. I'm involved in such a venture so my lens is skewed to see those examples. It works for our little group of a couple dozen people, but part of the reason it works is that the leadership made some money elsewhere so doesn't need to rely on higher incomes from this work.
What I do know is that people tend to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative if they are part of something than when they are just a cog. The word "investment" has come up several times here and I think its 100% accurate. The idea that paying a little more or providing a few more benefits is purely an expense is short-sighted. There are myriad examples of companies that upped the employee package and then started to realized the return on that investment a few quarters down the road. (If nothing else increasing employee retention is one of the most cost effective measures a company can implement.) In the end it may be as simple as keeping the drive for profit, but not making it the absolute top priority in all cases.
i can see a shift in my own organization over the last few years. they realized that retention was costing big time. it is not just the hiring costs but less trained and known staff members simply do not make good programs. there are sites where the adult relationships were terrible, lacked really good supervision of kids and lower quality activities and programs. the one manager who started off with saying we could pay lower rates for summer programming (which is higher skilled in my opinion) just because we could is now a year later supporting keeping the same wage with some bonus opportunities. we had some 'dismissal days' (days when there is no school but we provide care for a fee) that more experienced staff declined to work because the pay rate was lowered. the management level was out working at sites or hearing from my mid-manager level that we worked 12 hours a day to support lower quality staff. it was a rough transition for them to realize that you can't just focus on 'accountability' with lower skilled staff. if you have lower skilled staff you can't just send them to more trainings and shout accountability, it takes more work to manage that program as compared to experienced staff.
now a couple years ago my department was not listening to this so there are no guarantees and a lot of people left.
I remember this littlebitty personal experience, which I will share with you kids. Every word is true. I was enrolled in an industrial processes class, over at the Mega State U, back in around 1992. Our instructor was a long-tme faculty member, there. I usually sat next to a guy who was the same age as myself. He was returning to school on some kind of displaced worker program, after being let go after years of employment from the Zenith TV plant , which was in the process of shutting down & resuming production in Mexico. Anyway, this college professor would drone on day after day, not really presenting much content. Just BS--talking about his Ham Radio Shack, etc. What we needed to know was in the Xeroxed handouts he gave us & in the text. His lectures basically consisted of personal stories--one of which concerned how little he was paid. His tale of woe went about like this, and he told it more than once: Y'know--you buy a new car these days, and you only get about 50,000 miles out of it before you've got it going in the shop for one thing and another. According to him, 50,000 miles only represented 2-3 years of driving, what with trips to Florida and California and various other places several times a year. After he had told us how he struggled to get by on what little the University paid him, I went to the School Lirrrarrry(which they remodel every 5 years or so, just to keep it pretty), and looked in the Zurra Manual, and by gum, our prof was being paid a paltry $44,000 salary that year.(it'd prolly be paying 85-90k, now) Plus benefits, and tenure. In class, I told my fellow student(the Zenith guy)what our poor old prof made. The guy was um, not favorably impressed, lets put it that way. He said at his last full year at Zenith, he made $23,000, and that was working overtime more than 20 Saturdays. Which, he had thought was pretty good. There is no doubt in my mind that he had to produce a lot more work than our professor. So, my point is that there is a disparity, there. As it turned out, the new Zenith plant in Mexico didn't do too well; it had serious quality control and production problems. It seems to me that they were bought out by a Korean Company(LG), and the sets are all made in Asia, now. WalMart is a leading marketer of LG TV's, in case you want one. Hope that helps you some. Thankk Mee.
Anything in excess is obscene. And the problem with pure capitalism is it inherently doesn't recognize the obscenity of excess, although some of the founders of modern-day capitalism recognized it. Adam Smith and John Keynes both proposed "corrections" to vast inequality of wealth, and this was before there were huge multi-national corporations and Wall Street run amok. They surely couldn't have predicted the monster capitalism would create.
If profit is the ONLY bottom line, which it is in our current system, OK, people get paid, many have nice lives, many can live creative, entrepreneurial lives, and they benefit from the prosperity. But there's collateral damage. Stockholders don't go to meetings to ask how the environment is faring, or how many people had no choice but to work 60 hour weeks for low pay. To your earlier point, they don't ask "is it fair or ethical"--they ask "how much did you make me?" There is simply an inherent danger in that.
Capitalism isn't evil, and profits aren't evil--we all have to make a buck, but I get very suspicious of a system that is built only on profit as the bottom line. In that situation, we need regulation and oversight, checks and balances, and corrections when necessary.
There's much to what you say, but we are nowhere near the dreaded "pure capitalism" of peoples' imagination. If you measure the US economy by the imperfect tool of GDP, about 36% is federal, state and local spending, and non-profits account for another 5-6%. This doesn't include industries so heavily regulated as to be de facto government agencies. At best, I think you could say we are about a half-capitalist society. About half our economic decisions are informed by price signals and about half are made by political or regulatory fiat.
My concern is that the people who talk about moderating the "excesses of capitalism" generally have in mind some program for further curtailing some freedom or other for our own good. When the Justice Department decides to crack down on those robber barons at the Little Sisters of the Poor or Mrs. Clinton talks about the possibility of putting limits on the First Amendment I have trouble believing we are dangerously close to the capitalist side of the spectrum.
My belief is that we ultimately have more to fear from the would-be arbiters of "fair and ethical" than we do from the calculators of ROI.
There's much to what you say, but we are nowhere near the dreaded "pure capitalism" of peoples' imagination. If you measure the US economy by the imperfect tool of GDP, about 36% is federal, state and local spending, and non-profits account for another 5-6%. This doesn't include industries so heavily regulated as to be de facto government agencies. At best, I think you could say we are about a half-capitalist society. About half our economic decisions are informed by price signals and about half are made by political or regulatory fiat.
My concern is that the people who talk about moderating the "excesses of capitalism" generally have in mind some program for further curtailing some freedom or other for our own good. When the Justice Department decides to crack down on those robber barons at the Little Sisters of the Poor or Mrs. Clinton talks about the possibility of putting limits on the First Amendment I have trouble believing we are dangerously close to the capitalist side of the spectrum.
My belief is that we ultimately have more to fear from the would-be arbiters of "fair and ethical" than we do from the calculators of ROI. This is the zact same strategy Climate-change deniers---backed by those who have an economic self-interest in continuing to burn the candle at both ends--use. They attack the character of the messenger, rather than the message, by accusing them of using the cause for gaining political power for their "godless com'nism", all the while supporting denier candidates who will help their industry out with corporate welfare. The massive profits, are private. But, the losses are a matter that requires a government(public) bailout. See how that works?
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