| Author | Message | ||
     Xl1200r |
And $25 bucks an hour ain't a lot of dough, folks. It's $52,000 a year. Remember U.S. median income for a 4-person family was $70,354 for the period of October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009. $52k a year was enough for me to buy my own home, and I don't live in an area with a super low cost of living. (okay, I lied a little - I was making a little more than that when I bought, but not much, and I still had a new car and 3 motorcycles). And to boot, most 4-person households have two earners, meaning if both were making $52k a year, you'd be at well over $100k for household. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
most 4-person households have two earners That's the dark underbelly of the women's liberation movement. With women entering the work force, the labor quantity doubled. The price of labor went down as supply increased. As the wages fell, the number of households requiring two income earners to keep pace with standard of living rose. Now I'm not saying that women shouldn't work. Just making a comment as to the impact of wages as it relates to able bodied workers. | ||
| Xl1200r |
9% of the US workforce is now union. Thats a very small percentage. I think this could also be a testiment to how much manufacturing and trade work has left the country. And everyone is SO quick to blame overpaid CEOs without THINKING. USE YOUR HEADS, FOLKS. In a privately held company, the CEO is allowed to make as much as they damn well please (or, if the owner is not the CEO, the owner can pay a CEO as much as they damn well please) and nobody has a right to say two sh!ts about it. In a public company... guess what, IT'S THE SAME THING. Follow the breadcrumbs and it's up the SHAREHOLDERS. Union workers make what they make because of shareholders. CEOs make what they make because of shareholders. Want someone to blame? Look in the mirror. And let's all get real - if someone offered you millions to run a company, even if you didn't know how, an insanely small percentage of you would turn it down. And to boot, a CEOs life isn't all vacations and luxury. Don't get me wrong, they have it good, but they're pretty much working 24/7. It's like the Yankees paying however million dollars for Jeter or whatever (I'm not a baseball fan). the owners of the team pay it because they think he will bring more into the club than they pay out for him. Same for CEOs - the owners pay the CEO what they do because they think he'll bring more in than they pay out. Okay, now you want to blame the board of directors, then. Who elects them? You do. | ||
| Xl1200r |
That's the dark underbelly of the women's liberation movement. With women entering the work force, the labor quantity doubled. The price of labor went down as supply increased. As the wages fell, the number of households requiring two income earners to keep pace with standard of living rose. Now I'm not saying that women shouldn't work. Just making a comment as to the impact of wages as it relates to able bodied workers. I knew it would be female's fault in the long run (kidding, kidding, lol). However, maybe this means that some unions (and companies with union work) are behind the times with regards to wages? Just thinking out loud... I wasn't born long enough ago to know what women not being in the workforce was like. Very good observation, though. (Message edited by xl1200r on August 05, 2010) | ||
| Radioelasais |
Just making a comment as to the impact of wages as it relates to able bodied workers. Productivity increase should be factored in. | ||
| Hootowl |
Not to mention that our children are being raised by high school drop outs in day care centers instead of their mothers. | ||
| Swordsman |
Er, is there some reason the cause can't be chalked up to poor management AND greedy unions? Trying to defend one over the other seems kinda' pointless, IMHO, but maybe that's just me. We all know H-D Corporate are a bunch of douchebags, and Union leaders seem to be nothing but misplaced politicians, so.......  ~SM | ||
| Greg_e |
Is $25 an hour really what most of the line workers are making? That's not entirely out of line for that type of work, I could easily see $20 or so for some of the more skilled work, and down to $15-$17 for some of the less skilled work. Problem with most places is that they are paying $40+ for line work. If the high up management really wanted to cut costs, they could do what some people in the auto industry did and take no pay and no bonuses for a while. Anyone making over $250,000 a year should be subject to drastic reductions while the company struggles. If they have mismanaged their 1 million plus a year over the many years that most have been drawing it, then they really shouldn't be running the company anyway. $250,00 a year would still be many times what I make a year and I manage to get buy, just something they need to think about. | ||
| Tiltcylinder |
Travel the world, see how others live, ask how many hours a week they work, how much they earn, how many weeks vacation they get and how old they'll be when they retire. You'll find most of the developed world (Europe) thinks we're nuts and work much harder than they do, they have twice the time off, retire earlier, have jobs secured by law and work 35 or less hours a week. Countries like China, Malaysia, Korea, India have workers killing themselves to produce goods cheaply enough to sell in America. Eventually those workers will want what we've got and somewhere else will take over as main manufacturers for the globe... Africa.. South America? Look at what happened in Japan. Whoever is willing to work the hardest for the least is the 'winner' on the store shelves. Disposable items require a workforce continually earning/working to pay for them. We now make so little here, I find it a bit frightening. Cut ties with China and stores like Target,K-mart and Walmart would have to close down. Think about it. If the economy tanks enough we could go back to being a global manufacturing superpower. These days we sell more Buicks in China than America... | ||
| Strokizator |
Hourly costs of a worker are only half of the picture. Take a look at the Davis-Bacon pay schedules for prevailing wage work on govt projects. These numbers typically reflect the going rate for union labor. Take fire sprinkler fitters for example. In the counties surrounding San Francisco the base rate is $48.59 per hour. On top of that is another $20.55 in "fringe" benefits such as health & welfare, pension fund, vacation fund, training, etc. Now add another $3.75 an hour for the employers contribution to SSI, worker's comp premium (based upon value of hours worked), unemployment taxes, etc. and the direct cost of labor is closing in on $80 per hour. Oh yeah, he also wants me to provide him with a truck too. I would need to charge a customer $150/per hour for labor to cover overhead expense and a small profit. The employee sees $150/hr charges and claim I'm making a bundle off them so the next time contract negotiations come around, they demand a bigger piece of the pie. So to say "I only make X dollars per hour" is not telling the whole story. | ||
| Fast1075 |
John....   Finally, the voice of reality...and you ddn't even bring up the cost of insurance (health and liability)...I fight the same battles every day. | ||
| B00stzx3 |
Thanks NAFTA! Because Mexico and India are what matters to politicians, not Americans. | ||
| Tpoppa |
If an exec can make $10 million it means they have the education, experience, ambition, connections, personality, etc to have put them self in position to be considered for a job that pays $10 million. I say good for them. | ||
| Court |
Wow. | ||
| Bads1 |
}I know hey ??? (Message edited by bads1 on August 05, 2010) | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
In a privately held company, the CEO is allowed to make as much as they damn well please (or, if the owner is not the CEO, the owner can pay a CEO as much as they damn well please) and nobody has a right to say two sh!ts about it. In a public company... guess what, IT'S THE SAME THING. Follow the breadcrumbs and it's up the SHAREHOLDERS. Union workers make what they make because of shareholders. CEOs make what they make because of shareholders. That is an inaccurate statement. The shareholders do not have any control of the executive compensation. Since the arrival of the Baby Boomers and their ammoral business ethics, one of their first orders of business was to isolate executive comp. from the owners of the business. They do this through interlocking directorships, and sit on each others compensation committees, constantly raising the ante. I never thought I would say it, but we really need some regulation on these thieves, who are really little better than the whores in DC. | ||
| Spiderman |
In a privately held company, the CEO is allowed to make as much as they damn well please (or, if the owner is not the CEO, the owner can pay a CEO as much as they damn well please) and nobody has a right to say two sh!ts about it. In a public company... guess what, IT'S THE SAME THING. Follow the breadcrumbs and it's up the SHAREHOLDERS. Union workers make what they make because of shareholders. CEOs make what they make because of shareholders. Wandell? Is that you? LOL  | ||
| Xl1200r |
Wandell? Is that you? LOL, poke fun if you'd like, but every who gets a voter form for owning a share of HDI stock and ignores it and tosses in the trash are the responsible for some of this. And if the shareholders don't have the power (as gent_jon describes) then consumers can vote with their dollars. The whole bit is very self-fulfilling. | ||
| Gwb |
Gentleman_jon said: I never thought I would say it, but we really need some regulation on these thieves, who are really little better than the whores in DC. Gentleman_jon, why did you think you would never say that? I'm not asking insincerely, I'd really like to know. | ||
| Moxnix |
CEOs and boards of directors have become decidedly incestuous over the past 15 years, as Gentleman_jon notes. The regulation of ethical behavior and putting a cap on greed will be a tough task unless the market crashes. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
The level of whining is deafening. Get back to work !!! | ||
| Spiderman |
This whining bothers you but not all the political whining from both side LOL :P | ||
| Crusty |
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| Just_ziptab |
So I read somewhere that management made 30 times the wages of the production worker in 1950. Now it's 300 to 500 times that. What changed?? | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
So I read somewhere that the top NFL player's salaries in the 1950's were around $20,000. Now the top NFL player's salaries are around $25,000,000. What changed? | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Anybody?? | ||
| Crusty |
Greed became a virtue rather than a vice. | ||
| Davegess |
You all make way too much money, I say cut all your salaries in half and give me a raise! I do not understand all this bashing of people with goo paying jobs. Is anyone who makes more than what Walmart pays a greedy bastard? people need to make a decent wage with decent benefits to keep this country moving forward. If we want business to chase the lowest wages we all might as well give up and learn to live like thye do in China. | ||
| Ustorque |
Nicely put Dave, I couldn't agree more! | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
The only people who see greed are those who want what someone else has without the pesky trifle of earning it. |
