- that's a misunderstanding of business. Profits are due to the correct organization of capital, land, tools and human resources.
The employees already pay for not only their salary and benefits but all the profit the company makes
- more misunderstanding. The investor pays for all of this. Investor had to save money (or get a loan from other people who saved money), which means somebody had to produce (work) and postpone consumption in order to use the saved production for investment.
Good managers will work for normal salaries, just as good techs will - the ones motivated by money rather than doing the job well and being respected in the industry are precicely the psychopaths who should never be allowed to manage a company.
- who is going to forbid 'psychopaths' from running companies?
You don't like the management, quit. Form your own company, you believe you are not a 'psychopath', yes?
As to what constitutes a 'normal salary', well that's funny. In current situation with many companies being really bankrupt but being bailed out by governments, all of the notion of 'normal salary' went out of the window. The management knows that the company is insolvent, and here is a bunch of free money from government - it only makes sense to take as much of it as humanly possible - it's free money.
On the other hand those who run their own businesses in real competing markets and do not get government sponsorship, they get the salaries that are left over from all of the expenses less all of the revenues. When all the loans and interests are paid out, when all the expenses are covered, worker salaries are paid, utilities and taxes are paid, whatever is left over belongs to the management. They can choose to reinvest the money or they can choose to give themselves salaries.
You see, a company owner gets whatever leftovers from running a business after the books are balanced and necessary investments are made. However salaried workers get their compensation that they earn from 9 to 5, it's guaranteed and it's what they want - very little risk and limited work hours in exchange for a guaranteed salary.
Business owner never stops running the business, not in the evenings, not at night, not on vacations, never. Anything they can get out of the business for themselves is quite 'normal'.
The value of money is what it will buy.
- are you Ben Bernanke? Value of money is very precisely defined by US coinage act of 1792:
The Coinage Act of 1792 set the value of an eagle at 10 dollars, and the dollar at 1/10 eagle. It called for 90% silver alloy coins in denominations of 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/10, and 1/20 dollars; it called for 90% gold alloy coins in denominations of 1, 1/2, 1/4, and 1/10 eagles.
Compensation that buys less of the goods that employees use, including insurance, is lower compensation.
- whatever that means. Compensation is based on market needs, regardless of spending.
If you believe that compensation must be related to what the employees are spending, well then, how about hiring people who are spending on yachts, airplanes, submarines, private armies and harems and who want you to fund all of that by compensating them enough for all of it?
Labor has a superior right to compensation than does capital.
- capital is deferred consumption, derived from labor - production. So are you saying that labor has superior rights to labor?
Labor is selling their lives piecemeal, capital is trying to get something for nothing.
- only in broken economies and societies people can spout such nonsense.
Capital comes from savings, and savings are deferred consumption. Somebody has to produce enough to be able to save capital for reinvestment. This mea
Unemployment is going back up and inflation adjusted income is trending down and you still come out with that?
- because it is true and all of the problems you are referring to are caused by the mob rule of democracy, which overran the republic. When you talk about "inflation adjusted", how about realizing that inflation in USA is in double digits today, about 13%, and that it makes no sense to keep capital in that country given that level of inflation, given all of the labor laws and taxes and subsidies to monopolies.
Even in a "good" job market over the last several decades, labor's position hasn't been strong enough to keep employers from cutting training and apprentice programs to the bone
- it was only good by government inflating the money supply and stimulating consumption and causing bubbles to be inflated. Employers cutting training and apprentice programs is direct result of government interference with regulations and taxes. Even the minimum wage laws alone caused destruction of apprentice programs, and with all of the subsidies to education that government transfers to education institutions via student loans, what sense does it make for a company to hire somebody without the very maximum level of education that can be had in this free-for-all? Of-course nobody gives a shit that the students end up owning mortgages without owning actual houses with all this insane debt. And of-course the government wants this to continue, it's another massive stimulus, which on one hand transfers money from tax payers/creditors/USD denominated savings holders to government propped up institutions, and on the other hand it prevents the unemployment numbers from skyrocketing, as most of those students are staying at school longer, getting into more debt and not entering the work force. Most of those students shouldn't be in gov't colleges at all, "studying" sociology and then law (the system churns out worthless humanities degrees, and then the students look at their employment options and go for further studies this time in law, increasing the numbers of lawyers in the system, thus raising the levels of litigation.)
GDP per capita has gone up by a factor of 6 since the early '60s but income is flat.
1. 70% of US GDP is consumption based. Those are products created elsewhere and consumed in USA. What kind of 'production' indicator is that? 2. GDP is way overstated, because inflation is way understated. Real inflation is near 13% and CPI says it's just over 3.5%, so GDP has been falling by annual 10% at least for 5 years now, not growing. 3. Income is not flat, due to all of the inflation it's falling - the purchasing power of consumers is falling. This really started in 1971, 40 years ago, with Nixon defaulting on the promise to pay gold for US reserve notes.
So did a little wooden cuckoo actually pop out of your forehead when you typed that or was it just a metaphor?
- I am really wondering what it is that you have for brains, and I have an idea, but I won't go into the details here.
As for the rest, the people of the U.S. are under no obligation to even allow these corporations to exist at all.
- well, it's definitely outside of authority of federal government even to provide limits on legal liability to corporations. The entire notion of a corporation is government created, which is part of the reason for the current problems, as nobody is being held personally responsible for anything.
Incorporation is not a right, and is granted on the condition that the incorporation remain in the best interests of the people.
- you are so mistaken, it's crazy. What people? The best interests of the people are served when government stays out of all of the business altogether and doesn't distort the market by creating such things as corporations. Businesses exist without any special governmen
In 2005, Paul introduced the We the People Act, which would have removed "any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion" from the jurisdiction of federal courts. If made law, this provision would purportedly permit state, county, and local governments to decide whether to allow displays of religious text and imagery and whether to ban atheists from public office, but would not interfere with the application of relevant federal law.
and he wouldn't do anything unconstitutional, so to enact any type of change the Constitution must be amended, but if the amendment does not pass, then there can be no law:
Paul has sponsored a constitutional amendment which would allow students to pray privately in public schools, but would not allow anyone to be forced to pray against their will or allow the state to compose any type of prayer or officially sanction any prayer to be said in schools.
Also government has no authority to spend on public works projects, to prop up auto-companies or any other companies with subsidies and to use the public resources as leverage against individual liberties by blackmailing States.
I don't know what you are talking about, but what I do know is that while government was actively absent from the economy in 19 century in USA, the country became the biggest creditor and manufacturer nation, flooding the world with innovations and inventions and cheap good quality products, which did make lives better for everybody.
The mere knowledge that employees can unionize already makes a pressure on businessmen to provide a better working environment.
- conveniently you are sidestepping the actual reason why Ford did what he did - it was market pressure that caused him to do it, no threat of unions, which he wouldn't have allowed in his plants.
and that is where the modern social democracy and welfare state come from.
- no disagreement there. However I am looking right now and seeing how this very type of policy has lead the world to capital movement from the socialized states to those without such programs and what it is doing to all of these economies. You do realize that all of the social programs are now paid by debt and they will all end up badly, one way or another, don't you?
Sure it can. That's why government retains the monopoly on the use of force. Those with the guns set the rules. In a properly functioning democratic society, people - through their fairly elected representative - have the guns.
- USA is not a democracy, it's a republic, it's very important to understand that it was set up that way on purpose, because the Founders didn't trust democracies with their mob rules.
As to guns - what do you think they are used for all the time in USA? They are used to ensure that the government corporations (military industrial complex/energy/agriculture/etc.) get government sponsored contracts with all the wars. What did US do in Iran in 1953? It turned over a democratically elected government and changed the system by setting up a king.
And of course it wasn't automation which abolished child labor. The "nice" thing about human labor is just how insanely cheap it can get in a monopolized buyer's market for it. And when it's cheap enough, it beats machines in many areas.
- none of the child labor rules had any effect until the industries became too automated and became reliant on more specialized, more educated labor. You don't know what you are talking about. There was child labor in USA even in 1920s, with millions of very young children working.
This is still true today, which is evident if you visit any impoverished third-world country.
- they don't have enough capital to invest into more efficient production, to be able to churn out much more of the product with much lower costs and much higher quality. Their problem is they lack capital, well, now it's a US problem as well.
I expect resurgence of child labor in USA. The less valuable the dollar is, the more likely it is that there will be more and more antiquated practices brought back to life in USA as the capital is getting more difficult to come by and foreign goods will eventually become out of rich of unproductive American consumers with their counterfeit fiat and debt.
Monopolies do benefit from government regulation in countries where they can subvert said regulation to serve their goals (aka "government capitalism" - USA, China etc), but they thrive just as well in free market. Economy of scale leads to an inevitable conclusion
- economy of scale is a good thing, not a bad thing if it can provide the market with lowest prices and best quality.
If market is not getting a satisfactory product from a large company, there will be competition, it's all there is to it. The only real monopolies are created by government intervention.
were early economic reforms in collapsing USSR. Another one is Argentina. Baltic states are a more recent victim of the same.
- you are basically ignorant in all of these issues. I became aware of the scale of the problem in USSR when I was facing it in 70s and 80s, and it was extremely obvious how fast the economy was going into nowhere, as the government was printing trillions a year and still was unable to feed its own population and had to sell wea
Oh gee, maybe the contractors are the ones being screwed
- how so? I always am very specific about contracts, I would never take any benefit over a larger hourly wage.
and maybe the reason for the escalation of medical costs has something to do with the increased technology and medicine involved.
- I see. And then maybe the increased technology involved into building microprocessors and computers and hand held devices and TVs is the reason why those things are so much more expensive today than 50 years ago.
Wait a second, many of those things didn't even exist 50 years ago. But is there government subsidy in those things? Like some form of government enforced insurance? Hmmm... not really.
So what you are arguing for is that more technology makes things more expensive, which is the exact opposite of what we are actually observing - more technology makes things LESS expensive, because there is less and less human intervention needed to do what the technology does.
So the last question was: should labor be rewarded?
Well, not all labor is rewarded. You can labor the entire day moving stones back and forward on your backyard, see if that gets rewarded.
What IS rewarded is labor that is needed, and it is rewarded at whatever rates the market sets for it.
Don't forget that the real inflation numbers are about 13%, so in reality what Verizon seems to be doing is trying to get money out of US denominated assets and likely shift the capital abroad in this insane inflationary environment caused by government printing.
Basically they are losing 10% of their investment to inflation and I calculate that this has been happening for 5 years now.
It looks like you really believe what you wrote there, and that's fine. I observed plenty of different types of worker since I started working in software in 1995, and while in earlier years I saw people trying to come up with solutions to problems they weren't really familiar with, in the later years (say starting from 2005 and until I quit contracting to do my own stuff), I saw coders being pretty much what I described as assembly line workers, who just fit the same piece in, the same way they did before and that's what was expected from them. They were given the same tasks to do, and they just did them. I wrote a bit on this here.
Sure it happens, it's not like men are perfect. But it does not mean that it is what is happening all the time and everywhere, the more likely explanation is the one I provided: it's about money and having to make ends meet.
It's not an easy task to make ends meet when you are running a company, so you do what you have to do.
- you apparently, because your claim is I don't understand the issues, that I do not know about farm subsidies in USA. That's what those links prove - that you are incorrect on this, so that's a good start.
Bringing up how Germany does things as a contrast does not work when they are doing much the same thing. It discredited the rest of your remarks.
- nice big blatant blanket statement.
You should enumerate what remarks are being discredited, so that I can address them for you and show you why you are wrong on all of your statements.
Pointing out hypocrisy on the part of Michelle Bachmann. If you weren't familiar with how she rants and rails against government subsidies while receiving a share herself...ok, but I thought it was clear from the context.
- I know that she has a farm or somebody who is related to her does. She is a tax attorney I believe, and filed taxes that showed that the farm was getting the subsidies.
Again - what does this have to do with what I am arguing? I am NOT saying Bachmann is correct, I am saying all subsidies are wrong. But I see that logic is not your strong suit, let's continue.
But hey, did you know that the business interests will meddle just as much on their own without the government involved?
- business interests cannot meddle with something that it has no power over. Government regulating businesses gives certain businesses the power to regulate the government and destroy competition.
Unions are the only reason in the first place why we have 8 hour work day
- oh?
The first Model Ts were built at the Piquette Road Manufacturing Plant, the first company-owned factory. In its first full year of production, 1909, about 18,000 Model Ts were built. As demand for the car grew, the company moved production to the much larger Highland Park Plant, and in 1911, the first year of operation there, 69,762 Model Ts were produced, with 170,211 in 1912. By 1913, the company had developed all of the basic techniques of the assembly line and mass production. Ford introduced the world's first moving assembly line that year, which reduced chassis assembly time from 12½ hours in October to 2 hours 40 minutes (and ultimately 1 hour 33 minutes), and boosted annual output to 202,667 units that year After a Ford promised profit-sharing if sales hit 300,000 between August 1914 and August 1915, sales in 1914 reached 308,162, and 501,462 in 1915; by 1920, production would exceed one million a year.
These innovations were hard on employees, and turnover of workers was very high, while increased productivity actually reduced labor demand. Turnover meant delays and extra costs of training, and use of slow workers. In January 1914, Ford solved the employee turnover problem by doubling pay to $5 a day, cutting shifts from nine hours to an eight hour day for a 5 day work week (which also increased sales; a line worker could buy a T with less than four months' pay), and instituting hiring practices that identified the best workers, including disabled people considered unemployable by other firms. Employee turnover plunged, productivity soared, and with it, the cost per vehicle plummeted. Ford cut prices again and again and invented the system of franchised dealers who were loyal to his brand name.
So what I see is that a BUSINESSMAN without any unions, did the following for his employees:
1. Paid them 5USD/hour with 5x 8 hour days. This means he paid them 25USD/week. The price of gold was just over 19USD/ounce, that means he was paying 1.25 ounces of gold. At current gold prices of 1853/ounce, that's 2316 USD/week. That's 120,445USD/year.
2. Without income taxes to pay, Ford's workers were taking home over 120K in current money, and that's without income taxes. So in today's equivalent and given the fact that health insurance was about $5/year per person and doctor's visits were paid out of pocket and so was education and pension savings, because all of those things didn't have gov't involvement and so they were very affordable, today's equivalent would have to be at least 2.5 times that much, over 300,000USD.
strictly regulated child labor
- people always employed children in human history, the entire notion that child labor should be abolished only became possible with all the automation and increase of efficiencies in production, which required more educated work force. All of the regulations were ignored until the free market itself solved this problem by more automation and specialization. Children are a liability in current factories and manufacturing facilities, they are not help, so that's the only real reason why there is less child labor today.
No amount of regulations can stop a profitable thing from happening, you see. Also many children would benefit greatly if they were in fact allowed to work earlier than they currently are allowed. Before minimum wage laws children often became apprentices, learning useful trades and becoming less financially dependent earlier in life. What we have today is insanity - with children being taught that they must acquire more and more generalized education while getting into more and more debt to get it, as if they couldn't find work otherwise.
What really needs to be done of-course is that all labor and business regulations must be abolished, this includes any child labor laws. Modern production does not be
As an individual investor you are welcome to find the companies you are willing to invest into and do so, or you are welcome to start your own company and invest into that.
As to saying that employees are treated like cattle... excuse me? Verizon has 194,400 employees with 45000 striking union employees, so are you saying that about 150,000 employees are treated like cattle in Verizon? From what I see is that the 45000 union members are getting a deal, that is much above what the normal market is providing for that the non-union 150K employees are getting.
If having to pay part of your own health insurance and pension plan is being treated like cattle, then what about all the people who are doing their own savings and are paying for their own health insurance, are they the worst cattle of all? I prefer to invest my own money and I prefer to buy my own health insurance, does this mean I am cattle? I believe that allowing yourself to be treated as a herd comes from one's unwillingness to be an individual, who takes care of his own investment and other needs.
Good salaries and benefits means happy employees who are proud of their job and do their duties well.
- well sure, but what does being part of a union have to do with that? Good salaries do not come from unions, they come from healthy market and sound economy, which is the opposite of what unions and government spending achieve.
It also means long-term loyalty and commitment from the workforce. It may not look as good on the quarterly statement, but it shows that company is considering longer perspective - the ones that chase numbers from quarter to quarter are the ones with stock that can fall just as rapidly as it rises.
- it's not about stock prices, it's about dividends actually (if you are an investor that is). If you are a speculator on the other hand, then you prefer volatility to stability, you make more money that way, but that's like gambling in a casino.
Unions absolutely do not help long term company prospects, this is clear from all the companies that had unions and went under or where unions had to go away.
Neither unions nor government spending help your investments. In fact both of those factors are absolutely detrimental to your investments, just look at GM and Chrysler and notice that it's not the companies were bailed out from their financial problems, but it was the union that was bailed out and the investors were left holding empty promises, as the value of their portfolio was obliterated in a microsecond by the government resolution.
The real solution to GM and Chrysler problems would have been bankruptcy and restructuring of the debt, the bond holders and other investors would not have been made whole, they would have taken a haircut of-course, but the companies would have survived, would have been bought out at fair market value and would have been restructured and would have been doing sound business at this point.
Instead the government didn't just give a haircut to bond holders, but it cut their heads off, handed the bill for this atrocity to the tax payers all that the unions would be made whole instead. Of-course the market now is in worse conditions thanks to all of that, as failures are bailed out, the legitimate businesses (like Ford and others) suffer this and also now are faced with the moral hazard. Ford may be forced into bankruptcy by the union demands, simply because the unions believe that gov't will bail them out and screw investors.
As an investor the best possible decision for your investments would be to stay out of any union shops and in general to stay out of USA market, which is completely discredited by the government monopoly agenda of printing and inflating money, borrowing and spending beyond any means and abilities to ever repay the debts, all of the wars and business regulations and taxes and monopoly
Oh? You think sharing other people's money actually improves civilization somehow? Government taking money out of private sector and spending the money on what it prefers is what created all of the economic problems since the income taxes were introduced and the Fed was created in USA, while USA became the largest creditor nation and producer of innovation and cheap high quality goods prior to that moment in time.
Having government redistribute profits is what creates the mis-allocation of resources, takes people's liberties away, makes people dependent on government programs rather than having those very people invest their own savings into businesses of their choosing.
you as an employee wishes to have a guarantied income pension plan.
- it's quite peculiar, why would anybody think that they can have a 'guaranteed income pension plan' from a company? The days of people working for companies for their entire lives are over anyway, so even from that perspective it makes no sense, but if you believe you need a pension plan, why would you do such a stupid thing as to rely on government or your employer to provide you with one? This makes no sense.
What you do is you get the biggest hourly wage you can and then save some of the money and invest it yourself. That's your pension plan. How you invest it can be different from person to person, some would want to start their own business with the saved money and some would invest into other businesses via things like dividend paying stocks.
But then somebody like you will about, when such an investment is made into GM and then GM would fail and government would bail GM unions out and screw the bond holders/investors, and you'd say: you don't deserve to be paid first out of the bankruptcy asset liquidation, even though that's the established common law for over 150 years now at least in USA.
Of course, nothing is certain, and if the employee picked a company that goes out of business, well, they were a moron
- really? That's your answer? How about all of the contractors, who never ask for any pension plans in the first place?
An employee doesn't have to be stuck with a worthless pension plan just because his company folds, you see? That's where all of your ideology falls apart. What the employee needs is to be paid the maximum that the market provides for him. Then employee can apportion some of the money to his own pension plan and it shouldn't matter at all that the company folded.
Same problem by the way exists with health insurance in USA - employees should buy their own and not rely on employers to provide it for them. But the prices are so high specifically because gov't creates the moral hazard and pours money into insurance, so now it's not about how much an individual can afford, but what government can afford, and government just borrows and prints, so there is no limit to how high the prices can go.
Private health insurance in USA used to be extremely cheap and very good prior to Medicare and Medicaid.
People used to have savings and investments prior to SS.
Today people are made into slaves of the system, and they expect to be taken care of, but of-course the system is failing them because the system is completely broken and the reason for it is total disregard to the US Constitution.
But maybe you think risk should not be rewarded?
- I don't understand how this follows, but let me make something clear to you:
There is nothing that says that risk MUST be rewarded. You can take all sorts of risks and you can fail miserably, how does it follow that risk must be rewarded? You can go driving and you can die while doing that, was the risk worth it?
So should risk be rewarded? It's a silly question. Risk can be rewarded handsomely if you are risking the right thing and doing the right thing that's risky.
You cannot complain about differences between America and Germany by referring to farm subsidies, which in case you don't know, are also done in the US.
Even Michelle Bachman praises the farm subsidies in the US...perhaps because of the share she receives from them.
I don't understand your point.
Farm subsidies by countries are a major contributor to the lack of food and high food prices in the world, which could have much more food produced at much lower prices if governments were not collecting taxes to subsidize farms and then use the same taxes to force farmers destroy the crops to keep prices up.
African countries could provide most of what the world needs in terms of food if major countries stopped subsidizing their own farmers.
What does Bachmann have to do with it? She is only about half retarded.
I won't get into the practical reasons for them
- we all know the practical reasons for why politicians do things - they cater themselves to various business interests and they can do so because they are meddling with businesses in the first place.
Who is going to guarantee anything? Can you guarantee me anything? Can anybody guarantee that Verizon will stay in business at all 1 year from now? I think it will go out of business within a year, but it may get government bail out money, they already showed the propensity to bail out failed businesses, so why stop at banks and auto companies? They'll bail out States and municipalities, all of those have their obligations they can't meet either.
What is this magic that must guarantee anything? "Too big to fail" is Too Big to Exist and it's nonsense.
With every new bail out, with every new gov't deal there will be fewer and fewer jobs left in America, unions or no.
I wish for all fellow men to get all kinds of benefits as long as they are not getting it from my profit.
I am willing to provide benefits to anybody by doing work and the result of my work being the benefit to the society and the fellow man, who is then richer due to the products that I am creating. I want to be richer due to the products that the fellow man is creating.
I absolutely am not interested in any government dictating that some fellow man get more than they are producing not based on market forces but based on government putting a gun to an employer's head. I am absolutely not interested to have my profits taken away and shared among those, who didn't work for them by the force of government.
We all benefit from a working economy, and government intervention does not help economy but destroys it.
AFAIC there must be no public unions of any kind, it needs to be illegal to have public unions, where union members negotiate not with their employers - tax payers, but with their co-conspirators in the great tax payer heist - politicians.
As to private unions - they are fine, as long as there are no labor laws passed by government that change the power dynamic between the private business and private labor. It's their business, they can deal with their matters in court if any contractual obligations are violated. Beyond that there must be no government involvement into labor or business.
I am in Germany right now, and from speaking to people who actually are working here I understand that none of them want to deal with any unions. Are the jobs protected in Germany? Well sure, they are protected. For example the farms are subsidized. But what good is it for the market if Germans are generally speaking so much poorer than American counterparts? And they are poorer, they don't get to buy on credit like the US consumers, they don't get liar's loans like FHA and Freddie/Fannie was providing. They get more vacation time, but that comes at the expense of their salaries being actually quite low. Germans are mostly poor and it's getting worse with every new printed Euro that the European banks are bailed out with. But the economy in Germany is still going not because of unions, but because the salaries are getting lower as so much cheap immigrant labor was brought into the country from much poorer places in Eastern Europe and other places, like Turkey.
Again, when you talk about 'free time' in France, you are talking about lower salaries, because when you negotiate your salary it doesn't really matter how it's paid - in more cash or in more paid vacation time. It's not like the French have very high salaries and they get paid vacation. They have salaries that are commensurate with their vacation time.
Is France really doing OK though? Well, we are going to see how things unfold with all the government cuts that must happen. I just came from London (damn you, UK, I always get sick when I go there), and the riots that are happening in that country are a sign of the spending cuts into various welfare programs that were enacted past WWII. However it's a good sign - a sign of a country that is undergoing some form of change.
Of-course if the spending cuts are not followed by tax cuts then it's all for nothing and will not help the ailing British economy.
But I did go through Zurich on the way back, and the differences are obvious: the country has extremely low unemployment, very high export rates and very strong currency, which blows the minds of Keynesians out - what a paradox it must be for their Keynesian little heads. A strong currency and strong export numbers and low unemployment? Impossible, I tell you!
In USA though there are no riots on the streets yet, and this means that there are no austerity measures. There are no cuts, nobody feels any pain yet. Of-course the longer this blissful ignorance continues, the worse the rude awakening will expect Americans, as all of a sudden they will be cut off the drugs of free money they still are enjoying, and all of the cheap Chinese and other goods are going to be out of reach of most most Americans, regardless how many dollars they are holding.
I expect that the pawnshop businesses are booming, growing in US declining economy, as there is a huge repossession taking place - with US consumers unable to pay for anything but having all sorts of goods stuck in their homes and basements, while the Chinese and others have actual legitimate savings and very few goods.
The outflow of used products and raw materials/energy carriers from USA will become more and more pronounced, as the US consumers can no longer afford any of it, as vendor financed consumption comes to an end and they won't have the money to buy basics - like food and energy.
And all of these labor regulations, minimum wage laws, subsidies to businesses, corporate welfare, business regulations and various taxes that are applied to work are making sure that the capital flows out of USA much faster and the jobs are disappearing, and thus the US consumer is no longer a legitimate one, consuming over 53 billion USD/month more than he is producing.
I realise you are a libertarian, and therefore are arithmetically impaired
- I can add. I can count numbers like these ones: 1853 x 1900 - 350 x 1900. 42.90 x 500000 - 5.50 x 50000. I can figure them out.
you hire someone at some given level of benefits. If you want to change that, you negotiate. If they don't agree, tough luck, you signed the contract.
- really? So those bond holders who got screwed in GM deal, I guess their contract is worthless. As to workers - their contracts get re-negotiated, it's not something out of the ordinary, especially given the history of unions and how they just descend upon normal businesses and all of a sudden an employer is facing a dilemma: should I just close the shop? (some are doing the right thing of-course and do close it.)
Basically, you only have rights as an owner, and by extension, do not really own yourself...
- contracts should absolutely be upheld, and they are upheld until they expire.
Ever heard of contract expiring or do you believe that there is no such thing?
People who really do not own themselves are those, who give up their rights to their individuality and enter the collective.
Basically, if you think you cannot afford a certain level of salary/benefits, don't hire the workers. If you do, you are responsible -- to your eventual bankruptcy -- for upholding your part of the bargain. If you cannot hire anyone at the miserly salaries you are proposing, rethink you business.
- you are arguing my case.
Where do you think the jobs are going in this regulated market, which is skewed in favor of labor, because there are many employees, who are a majority voting block, while the employers are a tiny minority?
Of-course you are wrong on this, there is no Constitutional authority of any kind to for Congress to pass labor laws, but they don't care. The proof is in the pudding - the jobs are leaving.
There should be no labor regulations of any kind at all nor any business regulations, nor income/payroll/corporate taxes, nor subsidies and corporate welfare or personal welfare for that matter. All of the above is unconstitutional and it's not just an homage to the old age, it's wisdom - once government gets into business, some business gets into government and then the government business is the only business around and it's your government.
The tax payers/customers/competitors are all screwed in this game, but eventually it's the entire economy and the country that's screwed.
At least 18% of US population is unemployed or underemployed and your position on it is this:
If you cannot hire anyone at the miserly salaries you are proposing, rethink you business.
Guess what. People ARE rethinking it, that's why it's all in China.
There will be fewer and fewer jobs in USA exactly because of actions like the one described above. Why risk losing your investment to the government created inflation if you are going to be demonized as an investor for wanting a return on your investment?
This will give a good example to the rest of the industries that still allow unions in their shops.
Verizon announced it would pay a special $10 billion dividend to shareholders.
- yes, the shareholders. Those bastards, who were funding the operations. How dare they to want to escape government created inflation and move their money out of the USD denominated assets into something valuable?
I wonder how many pension funds are holding Verizon shares nowadays?
The company has made $3 billion already this year, and nearly $20 billion in the last four years.
- isn't that what business is for? Investing into it to make money? Who are you to decide what is a good return and what is not, especially given the government created inflation?
by attempting to slash their health care benefits,
The workers are striking because, they say, Verizon is preparing to make wide-spread wage cuts and to increase the amount employees contribute to their health care plans and pensions, among other things.... Additionally, Verizon does not plan to cut or remove its current employeesâ(TM) pensions. Instead, it hopes to move future employees away from pensions and into enhanced 401(k) plans, with increased contributions from Verizon.... A major source of contention between the two groups is health care. Union workers currently do not pay for their own health care. The company is now asking for the union workers to do so because of the continued increase in health care costs.
The non-union workers in Verizon are paying part of their health care premiums, the union workers do not. I am amazed that Verizon didn't try to tackle that issue much earlier!
As to pensions - companies should not even be in a position where they are forced to think about workers' retirements. SS needs to go away but so must this idea that company where you work is supposed to think for you about your own pension plan!
Slashdot Mirror
All those profits are due to the employees.
- that's a misunderstanding of business. Profits are due to the correct organization of capital, land, tools and human resources.
The employees already pay for not only their salary and benefits but all the profit the company makes
- more misunderstanding. The investor pays for all of this. Investor had to save money (or get a loan from other people who saved money), which means somebody had to produce (work) and postpone consumption in order to use the saved production for investment.
Good managers will work for normal salaries, just as good techs will - the ones motivated by money rather than doing the job well and being respected in the industry are precicely the psychopaths who should never be allowed to manage a company.
- who is going to forbid 'psychopaths' from running companies?
You don't like the management, quit. Form your own company, you believe you are not a 'psychopath', yes?
As to what constitutes a 'normal salary', well that's funny. In current situation with many companies being really bankrupt but being bailed out by governments, all of the notion of 'normal salary' went out of the window. The management knows that the company is insolvent, and here is a bunch of free money from government - it only makes sense to take as much of it as humanly possible - it's free money.
On the other hand those who run their own businesses in real competing markets and do not get government sponsorship, they get the salaries that are left over from all of the expenses less all of the revenues. When all the loans and interests are paid out, when all the expenses are covered, worker salaries are paid, utilities and taxes are paid, whatever is left over belongs to the management. They can choose to reinvest the money or they can choose to give themselves salaries.
You see, a company owner gets whatever leftovers from running a business after the books are balanced and necessary investments are made. However salaried workers get their compensation that they earn from 9 to 5, it's guaranteed and it's what they want - very little risk and limited work hours in exchange for a guaranteed salary.
Business owner never stops running the business, not in the evenings, not at night, not on vacations, never. Anything they can get out of the business for themselves is quite 'normal'.
The value of money is what it will buy.
- are you Ben Bernanke? Value of money is very precisely defined by US coinage act of 1792:
The Coinage Act of 1792 set the value of an eagle at 10 dollars, and the dollar at 1/10 eagle. It called for 90% silver alloy coins in denominations of 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/10, and 1/20 dollars; it called for 90% gold alloy coins in denominations of 1, 1/2, 1/4, and 1/10 eagles.
Compensation that buys less of the goods that employees use, including insurance, is lower compensation.
- whatever that means. Compensation is based on market needs, regardless of spending.
If you believe that compensation must be related to what the employees are spending, well then, how about hiring people who are spending on yachts, airplanes, submarines, private armies and harems and who want you to fund all of that by compensating them enough for all of it?
Labor has a superior right to compensation than does capital.
- capital is deferred consumption, derived from labor - production. So are you saying that labor has superior rights to labor?
Labor is selling their lives piecemeal, capital is trying to get something for nothing.
- only in broken economies and societies people can spout such nonsense.
Capital comes from savings, and savings are deferred consumption. Somebody has to produce enough to be able to save capital for reinvestment. This mea
Unemployment is going back up and inflation adjusted income is trending down and you still come out with that?
- because it is true and all of the problems you are referring to are caused by the mob rule of democracy, which overran the republic. When you talk about "inflation adjusted", how about realizing that inflation in USA is in double digits today, about 13%, and that it makes no sense to keep capital in that country given that level of inflation, given all of the labor laws and taxes and subsidies to monopolies.
Even in a "good" job market over the last several decades, labor's position hasn't been strong enough to keep employers from cutting training and apprentice programs to the bone
- it was only good by government inflating the money supply and stimulating consumption and causing bubbles to be inflated. Employers cutting training and apprentice programs is direct result of government interference with regulations and taxes. Even the minimum wage laws alone caused destruction of apprentice programs, and with all of the subsidies to education that government transfers to education institutions via student loans, what sense does it make for a company to hire somebody without the very maximum level of education that can be had in this free-for-all? Of-course nobody gives a shit that the students end up owning mortgages without owning actual houses with all this insane debt. And of-course the government wants this to continue, it's another massive stimulus, which on one hand transfers money from tax payers/creditors/USD denominated savings holders to government propped up institutions, and on the other hand it prevents the unemployment numbers from skyrocketing, as most of those students are staying at school longer, getting into more debt and not entering the work force. Most of those students shouldn't be in gov't colleges at all, "studying" sociology and then law (the system churns out worthless humanities degrees, and then the students look at their employment options and go for further studies this time in law, increasing the numbers of lawyers in the system, thus raising the levels of litigation.)
GDP per capita has gone up by a factor of 6 since the early '60s but income is flat.
1. 70% of US GDP is consumption based. Those are products created elsewhere and consumed in USA. What kind of 'production' indicator is that?
2. GDP is way overstated, because inflation is way understated. Real inflation is near 13% and CPI says it's just over 3.5%, so GDP has been falling by annual 10% at least for 5 years now, not growing.
3. Income is not flat, due to all of the inflation it's falling - the purchasing power of consumers is falling. This really started in 1971, 40 years ago, with Nixon defaulting on the promise to pay gold for US reserve notes.
So did a little wooden cuckoo actually pop out of your forehead when you typed that or was it just a metaphor?
- I am really wondering what it is that you have for brains, and I have an idea, but I won't go into the details here.
As for the rest, the people of the U.S. are under no obligation to even allow these corporations to exist at all.
- well, it's definitely outside of authority of federal government even to provide limits on legal liability to corporations. The entire notion of a corporation is government created, which is part of the reason for the current problems, as nobody is being held personally responsible for anything.
Incorporation is not a right, and is granted on the condition that the incorporation remain in the best interests of the people.
- you are so mistaken, it's crazy. What people? The best interests of the people are served when government stays out of all of the business altogether and doesn't distort the market by creating such things as corporations. Businesses exist without any special governmen
It's in the Constitution.
In 2005, Paul introduced the We the People Act, which would have removed "any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion" from the jurisdiction of federal courts. If made law, this provision would purportedly permit state, county, and local governments to decide whether to allow displays of religious text and imagery and whether to ban atheists from public office, but would not interfere with the application of relevant federal law.
and he wouldn't do anything unconstitutional, so to enact any type of change the Constitution must be amended, but if the amendment does not pass, then there can be no law:
Paul has sponsored a constitutional amendment which would allow students to pray privately in public schools, but would not allow anyone to be forced to pray against their will or allow the state to compose any type of prayer or officially sanction any prayer to be said in schools.
You are mistaken, plenty of people vote for somebody that I would vote for.
I addressed this long time ago.
Also government has no authority to spend on public works projects, to prop up auto-companies or any other companies with subsidies and to use the public resources as leverage against individual liberties by blackmailing States.
So, are you going to vote for the person, who is referenced by the links in my sig then?
I don't know what you are talking about, but what I do know is that while government was actively absent from the economy in 19 century in USA, the country became the biggest creditor and manufacturer nation, flooding the world with innovations and inventions and cheap good quality products, which did make lives better for everybody.
The mere knowledge that employees can unionize already makes a pressure on businessmen to provide a better working environment.
- conveniently you are sidestepping the actual reason why Ford did what he did - it was market pressure that caused him to do it, no threat of unions, which he wouldn't have allowed in his plants.
and that is where the modern social democracy and welfare state come from.
- no disagreement there. However I am looking right now and seeing how this very type of policy has lead the world to capital movement from the socialized states to those without such programs and what it is doing to all of these economies. You do realize that all of the social programs are now paid by debt and they will all end up badly, one way or another, don't you?
Sure it can. That's why government retains the monopoly on the use of force. Those with the guns set the rules. In a properly functioning democratic society, people - through their fairly elected representative - have the guns.
- USA is not a democracy, it's a republic, it's very important to understand that it was set up that way on purpose, because the Founders didn't trust democracies with their mob rules.
As to guns - what do you think they are used for all the time in USA? They are used to ensure that the government corporations (military industrial complex/energy/agriculture/etc.) get government sponsored contracts with all the wars. What did US do in Iran in 1953? It turned over a democratically elected government and changed the system by setting up a king.
And of course it wasn't automation which abolished child labor. The "nice" thing about human labor is just how insanely cheap it can get in a monopolized buyer's market for it. And when it's cheap enough, it beats machines in many areas.
- none of the child labor rules had any effect until the industries became too automated and became reliant on more specialized, more educated labor. You don't know what you are talking about. There was child labor in USA even in 1920s, with millions of very young children working.
This is still true today, which is evident if you visit any impoverished third-world country.
- they don't have enough capital to invest into more efficient production, to be able to churn out much more of the product with much lower costs and much higher quality. Their problem is they lack capital, well, now it's a US problem as well.
I expect resurgence of child labor in USA. The less valuable the dollar is, the more likely it is that there will be more and more antiquated practices brought back to life in USA as the capital is getting more difficult to come by and foreign goods will eventually become out of rich of unproductive American consumers with their counterfeit fiat and debt.
Monopolies do benefit from government regulation in countries where they can subvert said regulation to serve their goals (aka "government capitalism" - USA, China etc), but they thrive just as well in free market. Economy of scale leads to an inevitable conclusion
- economy of scale is a good thing, not a bad thing if it can provide the market with lowest prices and best quality.
If market is not getting a satisfactory product from a large company, there will be competition, it's all there is to it. The only real monopolies are created by government intervention.
were early economic reforms in collapsing USSR. Another one is Argentina. Baltic states are a more recent victim of the same.
- you are basically ignorant in all of these issues. I became aware of the scale of the problem in USSR when I was facing it in 70s and 80s, and it was extremely obvious how fast the economy was going into nowhere, as the government was printing trillions a year and still was unable to feed its own population and had to sell wea
Then why not go all the way and reduce costs by shutting down the business?
- isn't it a better idea to cut costs without shutting down business? That way it's a win win - costs are lower and business is still open?
You should only reduce costs if the costs exceed the benefits.
- no. You should reduce costs all the time in order to work towards maximization of profit.
You should not reduce costs further only if that means that cost reduction will lead to profit reduction.
Oh gee, maybe the contractors are the ones being screwed
- how so? I always am very specific about contracts, I would never take any benefit over a larger hourly wage.
and maybe the reason for the escalation of medical costs has something to do with the increased technology and medicine involved.
- I see. And then maybe the increased technology involved into building microprocessors and computers and hand held devices and TVs is the reason why those things are so much more expensive today than 50 years ago.
Wait a second, many of those things didn't even exist 50 years ago. But is there government subsidy in those things? Like some form of government enforced insurance? Hmmm... not really.
So what you are arguing for is that more technology makes things more expensive, which is the exact opposite of what we are actually observing - more technology makes things LESS expensive, because there is less and less human intervention needed to do what the technology does.
So the last question was: should labor be rewarded?
Well, not all labor is rewarded. You can labor the entire day moving stones back and forward on your backyard, see if that gets rewarded.
What IS rewarded is labor that is needed, and it is rewarded at whatever rates the market sets for it.
Don't forget that the real inflation numbers are about 13%, so in reality what Verizon seems to be doing is trying to get money out of US denominated assets and likely shift the capital abroad in this insane inflationary environment caused by government printing.
Basically they are losing 10% of their investment to inflation and I calculate that this has been happening for 5 years now.
It looks like you really believe what you wrote there, and that's fine. I observed plenty of different types of worker since I started working in software in 1995, and while in earlier years I saw people trying to come up with solutions to problems they weren't really familiar with, in the later years (say starting from 2005 and until I quit contracting to do my own stuff), I saw coders being pretty much what I described as assembly line workers, who just fit the same piece in, the same way they did before and that's what was expected from them. They were given the same tasks to do, and they just did them. I wrote a bit on this here.
Sure it happens, it's not like men are perfect. But it does not mean that it is what is happening all the time and everywhere, the more likely explanation is the one I provided: it's about money and having to make ends meet.
It's not an easy task to make ends meet when you are running a company, so you do what you have to do.
Who cares about your record?
- you apparently, because your claim is I don't understand the issues, that I do not know about farm subsidies in USA. That's what those links prove - that you are incorrect on this, so that's a good start.
Bringing up how Germany does things as a contrast does not work when they are doing much the same thing. It discredited the rest of your remarks.
- nice big blatant blanket statement.
You should enumerate what remarks are being discredited, so that I can address them for you and show you why you are wrong on all of your statements.
Pointing out hypocrisy on the part of Michelle Bachmann. If you weren't familiar with how she rants and rails against government subsidies while receiving a share herself...ok, but I thought it was clear from the context.
- I know that she has a farm or somebody who is related to her does. She is a tax attorney I believe, and filed taxes that showed that the farm was getting the subsidies.
Again - what does this have to do with what I am arguing? I am NOT saying Bachmann is correct, I am saying all subsidies are wrong. But I see that logic is not your strong suit, let's continue.
But hey, did you know that the business interests will meddle just as much on their own without the government involved?
- business interests cannot meddle with something that it has no power over. Government regulating businesses gives certain businesses the power to regulate the government and destroy competition.
I have specified the way in which this can be fixed of-course.
Unions are the only reason in the first place why we have 8 hour work day
- oh?
The first Model Ts were built at the Piquette Road Manufacturing Plant, the first company-owned factory. In its first full year of production, 1909, about 18,000 Model Ts were built. As demand for the car grew, the company moved production to the much larger Highland Park Plant, and in 1911, the first year of operation there, 69,762 Model Ts were produced, with 170,211 in 1912. By 1913, the company had developed all of the basic techniques of the assembly line and mass production. Ford introduced the world's first moving assembly line that year, which reduced chassis assembly time from 12½ hours in October to 2 hours 40 minutes (and ultimately 1 hour 33 minutes), and boosted annual output to 202,667 units that year After a Ford promised profit-sharing if sales hit 300,000 between August 1914 and August 1915, sales in 1914 reached 308,162, and 501,462 in 1915; by 1920, production would exceed one million a year.
These innovations were hard on employees, and turnover of workers was very high, while increased productivity actually reduced labor demand. Turnover meant delays and extra costs of training, and use of slow workers. In January 1914, Ford solved the employee turnover problem by doubling pay to $5 a day, cutting shifts from nine hours to an eight hour day for a 5 day work week (which also increased sales; a line worker could buy a T with less than four months' pay), and instituting hiring practices that identified the best workers, including disabled people considered unemployable by other firms. Employee turnover plunged, productivity soared, and with it, the cost per vehicle plummeted. Ford cut prices again and again and invented the system of franchised dealers who were loyal to his brand name.
So what I see is that a BUSINESSMAN without any unions, did the following for his employees:
1. Paid them 5USD/hour with 5x 8 hour days. This means he paid them 25USD/week. The price of gold was just over 19USD/ounce, that means he was paying 1.25 ounces of gold. At current gold prices of 1853/ounce, that's 2316 USD/week. That's 120,445USD/year.
2. Without income taxes to pay, Ford's workers were taking home over 120K in current money, and that's without income taxes. So in today's equivalent and given the fact that health insurance was about $5/year per person and doctor's visits were paid out of pocket and so was education and pension savings, because all of those things didn't have gov't involvement and so they were very affordable, today's equivalent would have to be at least 2.5 times that much, over 300,000USD.
strictly regulated child labor
- people always employed children in human history, the entire notion that child labor should be abolished only became possible with all the automation and increase of efficiencies in production, which required more educated work force. All of the regulations were ignored until the free market itself solved this problem by more automation and specialization. Children are a liability in current factories and manufacturing facilities, they are not help, so that's the only real reason why there is less child labor today.
No amount of regulations can stop a profitable thing from happening, you see. Also many children would benefit greatly if they were in fact allowed to work earlier than they currently are allowed. Before minimum wage laws children often became apprentices, learning useful trades and becoming less financially dependent earlier in life. What we have today is insanity - with children being taught that they must acquire more and more generalized education while getting into more and more debt to get it, as if they couldn't find work otherwise.
What really needs to be done of-course is that all labor and business regulations must be abolished, this includes any child labor laws. Modern production does not be
As an individual investor you are welcome to find the companies you are willing to invest into and do so, or you are welcome to start your own company and invest into that.
As to saying that employees are treated like cattle... excuse me? Verizon has 194,400 employees with 45000 striking union employees, so are you saying that about 150,000 employees are treated like cattle in Verizon? From what I see is that the 45000 union members are getting a deal, that is much above what the normal market is providing for that the non-union 150K employees are getting.
If having to pay part of your own health insurance and pension plan is being treated like cattle, then what about all the people who are doing their own savings and are paying for their own health insurance, are they the worst cattle of all? I prefer to invest my own money and I prefer to buy my own health insurance, does this mean I am cattle? I believe that allowing yourself to be treated as a herd comes from one's unwillingness to be an individual, who takes care of his own investment and other needs.
Good salaries and benefits means happy employees who are proud of their job and do their duties well.
- well sure, but what does being part of a union have to do with that? Good salaries do not come from unions, they come from healthy market and sound economy, which is the opposite of what unions and government spending achieve.
It also means long-term loyalty and commitment from the workforce. It may not look as good on the quarterly statement, but it shows that company is considering longer perspective - the ones that chase numbers from quarter to quarter are the ones with stock that can fall just as rapidly as it rises.
- it's not about stock prices, it's about dividends actually (if you are an investor that is). If you are a speculator on the other hand, then you prefer volatility to stability, you make more money that way, but that's like gambling in a casino.
Unions absolutely do not help long term company prospects, this is clear from all the companies that had unions and went under or where unions had to go away.
Neither unions nor government spending help your investments. In fact both of those factors are absolutely detrimental to your investments, just look at GM and Chrysler and notice that it's not the companies were bailed out from their financial problems, but it was the union that was bailed out and the investors were left holding empty promises, as the value of their portfolio was obliterated in a microsecond by the government resolution.
The real solution to GM and Chrysler problems would have been bankruptcy and restructuring of the debt, the bond holders and other investors would not have been made whole, they would have taken a haircut of-course, but the companies would have survived, would have been bought out at fair market value and would have been restructured and would have been doing sound business at this point.
Instead the government didn't just give a haircut to bond holders, but it cut their heads off, handed the bill for this atrocity to the tax payers all that the unions would be made whole instead. Of-course the market now is in worse conditions thanks to all of that, as failures are bailed out, the legitimate businesses (like Ford and others) suffer this and also now are faced with the moral hazard. Ford may be forced into bankruptcy by the union demands, simply because the unions believe that gov't will bail them out and screw investors.
As an investor the best possible decision for your investments would be to stay out of any union shops and in general to stay out of USA market, which is completely discredited by the government monopoly agenda of printing and inflating money, borrowing and spending beyond any means and abilities to ever repay the debts, all of the wars and business regulations and taxes and monopoly
Oh? You think sharing other people's money actually improves civilization somehow? Government taking money out of private sector and spending the money on what it prefers is what created all of the economic problems since the income taxes were introduced and the Fed was created in USA, while USA became the largest creditor nation and producer of innovation and cheap high quality goods prior to that moment in time.
Having government redistribute profits is what creates the mis-allocation of resources, takes people's liberties away, makes people dependent on government programs rather than having those very people invest their own savings into businesses of their choosing.
you as an employee wishes to have a guarantied income pension plan.
- it's quite peculiar, why would anybody think that they can have a 'guaranteed income pension plan' from a company? The days of people working for companies for their entire lives are over anyway, so even from that perspective it makes no sense, but if you believe you need a pension plan, why would you do such a stupid thing as to rely on government or your employer to provide you with one? This makes no sense.
What you do is you get the biggest hourly wage you can and then save some of the money and invest it yourself. That's your pension plan. How you invest it can be different from person to person, some would want to start their own business with the saved money and some would invest into other businesses via things like dividend paying stocks.
But then somebody like you will about, when such an investment is made into GM and then GM would fail and government would bail GM unions out and screw the bond holders/investors, and you'd say: you don't deserve to be paid first out of the bankruptcy asset liquidation, even though that's the established common law for over 150 years now at least in USA.
Of course, nothing is certain, and if the employee picked a company that goes out of business, well, they were a moron
- really? That's your answer? How about all of the contractors, who never ask for any pension plans in the first place?
An employee doesn't have to be stuck with a worthless pension plan just because his company folds, you see? That's where all of your ideology falls apart. What the employee needs is to be paid the maximum that the market provides for him. Then employee can apportion some of the money to his own pension plan and it shouldn't matter at all that the company folded.
Same problem by the way exists with health insurance in USA - employees should buy their own and not rely on employers to provide it for them. But the prices are so high specifically because gov't creates the moral hazard and pours money into insurance, so now it's not about how much an individual can afford, but what government can afford, and government just borrows and prints, so there is no limit to how high the prices can go.
Private health insurance in USA used to be extremely cheap and very good prior to Medicare and Medicaid.
People used to have savings and investments prior to SS.
Today people are made into slaves of the system, and they expect to be taken care of, but of-course the system is failing them because the system is completely broken and the reason for it is total disregard to the US Constitution.
But maybe you think risk should not be rewarded?
- I don't understand how this follows, but let me make something clear to you:
There is nothing that says that risk MUST be rewarded. You can take all sorts of risks and you can fail miserably, how does it follow that risk must be rewarded? You can go driving and you can die while doing that, was the risk worth it?
So should risk be rewarded? It's a silly question. Risk can be rewarded handsomely if you are risking the right thing and doing the right thing that's risky.
You cannot complain about differences between America and Germany by referring to farm subsidies, which in case you don't know, are also done in the US.
I let the record speak for itself.
Even Michelle Bachman praises the farm subsidies in the US...perhaps because of the share she receives from them.
I don't understand your point.
Farm subsidies by countries are a major contributor to the lack of food and high food prices in the world, which could have much more food produced at much lower prices if governments were not collecting taxes to subsidize farms and then use the same taxes to force farmers destroy the crops to keep prices up.
African countries could provide most of what the world needs in terms of food if major countries stopped subsidizing their own farmers.
What does Bachmann have to do with it? She is only about half retarded.
I won't get into the practical reasons for them
- we all know the practical reasons for why politicians do things - they cater themselves to various business interests and they can do so because they are meddling with businesses in the first place.
Who is going to guarantee anything? Can you guarantee me anything? Can anybody guarantee that Verizon will stay in business at all 1 year from now? I think it will go out of business within a year, but it may get government bail out money, they already showed the propensity to bail out failed businesses, so why stop at banks and auto companies? They'll bail out States and municipalities, all of those have their obligations they can't meet either.
What is this magic that must guarantee anything? "Too big to fail" is Too Big to Exist and it's nonsense.
With every new bail out, with every new gov't deal there will be fewer and fewer jobs left in America, unions or no.
I wish for all fellow men to get all kinds of benefits as long as they are not getting it from my profit.
I am willing to provide benefits to anybody by doing work and the result of my work being the benefit to the society and the fellow man, who is then richer due to the products that I am creating. I want to be richer due to the products that the fellow man is creating.
I absolutely am not interested in any government dictating that some fellow man get more than they are producing not based on market forces but based on government putting a gun to an employer's head. I am absolutely not interested to have my profits taken away and shared among those, who didn't work for them by the force of government.
We all benefit from a working economy, and government intervention does not help economy but destroys it.
AFAIC there must be no public unions of any kind, it needs to be illegal to have public unions, where union members negotiate not with their employers - tax payers, but with their co-conspirators in the great tax payer heist - politicians.
As to private unions - they are fine, as long as there are no labor laws passed by government that change the power dynamic between the private business and private labor. It's their business, they can deal with their matters in court if any contractual obligations are violated. Beyond that there must be no government involvement into labor or business.
I am in Germany right now, and from speaking to people who actually are working here I understand that none of them want to deal with any unions. Are the jobs protected in Germany? Well sure, they are protected. For example the farms are subsidized. But what good is it for the market if Germans are generally speaking so much poorer than American counterparts? And they are poorer, they don't get to buy on credit like the US consumers, they don't get liar's loans like FHA and Freddie/Fannie was providing. They get more vacation time, but that comes at the expense of their salaries being actually quite low. Germans are mostly poor and it's getting worse with every new printed Euro that the European banks are bailed out with. But the economy in Germany is still going not because of unions, but because the salaries are getting lower as so much cheap immigrant labor was brought into the country from much poorer places in Eastern Europe and other places, like Turkey.
Again, when you talk about 'free time' in France, you are talking about lower salaries, because when you negotiate your salary it doesn't really matter how it's paid - in more cash or in more paid vacation time. It's not like the French have very high salaries and they get paid vacation. They have salaries that are commensurate with their vacation time.
Is France really doing OK though? Well, we are going to see how things unfold with all the government cuts that must happen. I just came from London (damn you, UK, I always get sick when I go there), and the riots that are happening in that country are a sign of the spending cuts into various welfare programs that were enacted past WWII. However it's a good sign - a sign of a country that is undergoing some form of change.
Of-course if the spending cuts are not followed by tax cuts then it's all for nothing and will not help the ailing British economy.
But I did go through Zurich on the way back, and the differences are obvious: the country has extremely low unemployment, very high export rates and very strong currency, which blows the minds of Keynesians out - what a paradox it must be for their Keynesian little heads. A strong currency and strong export numbers and low unemployment? Impossible, I tell you!
In USA though there are no riots on the streets yet, and this means that there are no austerity measures. There are no cuts, nobody feels any pain yet. Of-course the longer this blissful ignorance continues, the worse the rude awakening will expect Americans, as all of a sudden they will be cut off the drugs of free money they still are enjoying, and all of the cheap Chinese and other goods are going to be out of reach of most most Americans, regardless how many dollars they are holding.
I expect that the pawnshop businesses are booming, growing in US declining economy, as there is a huge repossession taking place - with US consumers unable to pay for anything but having all sorts of goods stuck in their homes and basements, while the Chinese and others have actual legitimate savings and very few goods.
The outflow of used products and raw materials/energy carriers from USA will become more and more pronounced, as the US consumers can no longer afford any of it, as vendor financed consumption comes to an end and they won't have the money to buy basics - like food and energy.
And all of these labor regulations, minimum wage laws, subsidies to businesses, corporate welfare, business regulations and various taxes that are applied to work are making sure that the capital flows out of USA much faster and the jobs are disappearing, and thus the US consumer is no longer a legitimate one, consuming over 53 billion USD/month more than he is producing.
I realise you are a libertarian, and therefore are arithmetically impaired
- I can add. I can count numbers like these ones: 1853 x 1900 - 350 x 1900. 42.90 x 500000 - 5.50 x 50000. I can figure them out.
you hire someone at some given level of benefits. If you want to change that, you negotiate. If they don't agree, tough luck, you signed the contract.
- really? So those bond holders who got screwed in GM deal, I guess their contract is worthless. As to workers - their contracts get re-negotiated, it's not something out of the ordinary, especially given the history of unions and how they just descend upon normal businesses and all of a sudden an employer is facing a dilemma: should I just close the shop? (some are doing the right thing of-course and do close it.)
Basically, you only have rights as an owner, and by extension, do not really own yourself...
- contracts should absolutely be upheld, and they are upheld until they expire.
Ever heard of contract expiring or do you believe that there is no such thing?
People who really do not own themselves are those, who give up their rights to their individuality and enter the collective.
Basically, if you think you cannot afford a certain level of salary/benefits, don't hire the workers. If you do, you are responsible -- to your eventual bankruptcy -- for upholding your part of the bargain. If you cannot hire anyone at the miserly salaries you are proposing, rethink you business.
- you are arguing my case.
Where do you think the jobs are going in this regulated market, which is skewed in favor of labor, because there are many employees, who are a majority voting block, while the employers are a tiny minority?
Of-course you are wrong on this, there is no Constitutional authority of any kind to for Congress to pass labor laws, but they don't care. The proof is in the pudding - the jobs are leaving.
There should be no labor regulations of any kind at all nor any business regulations, nor income/payroll/corporate taxes, nor subsidies and corporate welfare or personal welfare for that matter. All of the above is unconstitutional and it's not just an homage to the old age, it's wisdom - once government gets into business, some business gets into government and then the government business is the only business around and it's your government.
The tax payers/customers/competitors are all screwed in this game, but eventually it's the entire economy and the country that's screwed.
At least 18% of US population is unemployed or underemployed and your position on it is this:
If you cannot hire anyone at the miserly salaries you are proposing, rethink you business.
Guess what. People ARE rethinking it, that's why it's all in China.
There will be fewer and fewer jobs in USA exactly because of actions like the one described above. Why risk losing your investment to the government created inflation if you are going to be demonized as an investor for wanting a return on your investment?
This will give a good example to the rest of the industries that still allow unions in their shops.
Verizon announced it would pay a special $10 billion dividend to shareholders.
- yes, the shareholders. Those bastards, who were funding the operations. How dare they to want to escape government created inflation and move their money out of the USD denominated assets into something valuable?
I wonder how many pension funds are holding Verizon shares nowadays?
The company has made $3 billion already this year, and nearly $20 billion in the last four years.
- isn't that what business is for? Investing into it to make money? Who are you to decide what is a good return and what is not, especially given the government created inflation?
by attempting to slash their health care benefits,
The workers are striking because, they say, Verizon is preparing to make wide-spread wage cuts and to increase the amount employees contribute to their health care plans and pensions, among other things.
Additionally, Verizon does not plan to cut or remove its current employeesâ(TM) pensions. Instead, it hopes to move future employees away from pensions and into enhanced 401(k) plans, with increased contributions from Verizon.
A major source of contention between the two groups is health care. Union workers currently do not pay for their own health care. The company is now asking for the union workers to do so because of the continued increase in health care costs.
The non-union workers in Verizon are paying part of their health care premiums, the union workers do not. I am amazed that Verizon didn't try to tackle that issue much earlier!
As to pensions - companies should not even be in a position where they are forced to think about workers' retirements. SS needs to go away but so must this idea that company where you work is supposed to think for you about your own pension plan!