| Author | Message | ||
     Bill0351 |
"Any tax reform that is designed to "share the wealth" or "equalize compensation" IS socialism." That's absolute foolishness. That's the Fox News definition of socialism. Governments exist on a continuum. Miniscule moves toward the left don't equal socialism or communism any more than incremental shifts to the right equal fascism or anarchy. Another thing: Slopes usually aren't nearly as slippery as people make them out to be. I find your arguments to be at least as tiresome and trite as you find mine. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
They should have cut everyone's wages from the CEO to the lowest janitorial employee proportionate to the amount of corporate loss. THAT would be "equal". Company loses 12% for the year. Everyone takes a 12% loss in pay. The employees get bonuses when they make money don't they? Why not also share in the loss? It would make EVERY person entrepreunurial in their outlook. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Obama will save us from ourselves. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
That's absolute foolishness. That's the Fox News definition of socialism. Governments exist on a continuum. Miniscule moves toward the left don't equal socialism or communism any more than incremental shifts to the right equal fascism or anarchy. Another thing: Slopes usually aren't nearly as slippery as people make them out to be. I find your arguments to be at least as tiresome and trite as you find mine. If a little "equality" is good, a LOT must be better. There is no end to that philosophy. The slope is only "not that slippery" because YOU believe in the direction. Place a copy of the 10 Commandments in a courtroom and suddenly the slope is seen as "slippery". NOWHERE in the constitution is there a provision for "sharing the wealth". That concept is FOREIGN to the intent of the founding fathers. It is found in socialist and communist ideals, though. Even a little socialism is still socialism. Socialism doesn't work. It fails everywhere it has been tried. | ||
| Bill0351 |
"They should have cut everyone's wages from the CEO to the lowest janitorial employee proportionate to the amount of corporate loss." The better approach might have been to look for obvious wastes of revenue and remove them. I might start at a $14,000,000 CEO. | ||
| Xl1200r |
The better approach might have been to look for obvious wastes of revenue and remove them. I might start at a $14,000,000 CEO. And he might start with laying off a crap ton of factory workers. Bottom line is he's the boss and you don't own a controlling share in the company. Go apply for the job and fix it already. (Message edited by xl1200r on December 22, 2008) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
The better approach might have been to look for obvious wastes of revenue and remove them. I might start at a $14,000,000 CEO. A much bigger waste of cash would the the 100% above market post retirement benefits package promised to the Union. Slavery asks that a government by threat of force grant to another that which he didn't earn from those who earned. I'm assuming you've never been in a position of management, never run a business, never made payroll, never provided benefits to another group, etc. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Actually, if you do take federal student loans, they do tell you were you can go to college, because not all higher institutions accept them. It is the reason I graduated from a state school than from that private school that I had started at. (they suck ya in with a nice full ride scholarship and it turns out its only for the freshman year... damn fine print) | ||
| Oldog |
That's absolute foolishness. That's the Fox News definition of socialism. Governments exist on a continuum. Miniscule moves toward the left don't equal socialism or communism any more than incremental shifts to the right equal fascism or anarchy. From Each acording to his ability, to each according to his need. PeBO From Video of joe the plumber "Share the wealth" Were his exact words, from the context of taking money from earners, to give to lower incomes, sounds like socialisim / Marxisim to me, I find the exorbinent salaries paid execs of FAILING Businesses, disturbing, How EVER I find the Governmental lack of planning and oversite for the bank GAW equally disturbing. I do not want the government deciding how much money I [ or any one else ] can keep if "I" make more than X BTW X started @ 250K and crept down to 200K The issues that we face are not the pay amounts but IMO are more a matter of culture, the greed and me first must change either find a solution or find the door. this should include washington.. The comment above about promising this or that to get some group to "pull the lever" for canidate X is not to far off I listend to a bunch of college age men and women who between them all did not have 1/2 of a clue, they were all about PeBO, and "CHANGE" I am taking a Wait and See attitude. so far its S.O.S. | ||
| Mikej |
So let's see, we take a CEO making $1mil a year and a sanitation employee at the same company making $25,000 a year. Reduce each pay by 12%. Now we have the CEO making $880,000 and the sanitation employee making $22,000. I could live very well on that $880,000. I could not live so well on that $22,000. I could also live very well on $500,000/year, and if you took $500,000 from the CEO you could keep 166 employees making $25,000/year at their current pay scale. Who's worth more to the company, the sanitation guy or the CEO, let me go plug up the toilet before you answer that. I've worked at very few companies that paid bonuses to anyone who wasn't in management or who wasn't salaried, or who didn't have a "package and severance contract" (talking in terms of Golden and Silver Parachutes). YMMV Me, I'm just trying to maintain being able to afford bread and gas. Give me $500,000 after taxes and I could live very well for over 10 years without working at all. I don't foresee receiving anything from the new administration, I do foresee loosing something, I also lost some under the current administration. Fair is sometimes being in the right place at the right time and making the right choice, that opportunity isn't always available to everyone. Wanna buy a Buell????? Gotta buy gas for the snowblower so I can get to work tomorrow. I don't hear of many CEO's blowing their own snow (unless it's the illegal kind of snow). YMMV. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
So let's see, we take a CEO making $1mil a year and a sanitation employee at the same company making $25,000 a year. Reduce each pay by 12%. Now we have the CEO making $880,000 and the sanitation employee making $22,000. I could live very well on that $880,000. I could not live so well on that $22,000. I could also live very well on $500,000/year, and if you took $500,000 from the CEO you could keep 166 employees making $25,000/year at their current pay scale. Who's worth more to the company, the sanitation guy or the CEO, let me go plug up the toilet before you answer that. I've worked at very few companies that paid bonuses to anyone who wasn't in management or who wasn't salaried, or who didn't have a "package and severance contract" (talking in terms of Golden and Silver Parachutes). YMMV Me, I'm just trying to maintain being able to afford bread and gas. Give me $500,000 after taxes and I could live very well for over 10 years without working at all. I don't foresee receiving anything from the new administration, I do foresee loosing something, I also lost some under the current administration. Fair is sometimes being in the right place at the right time and making the right choice, that opportunity isn't always available to everyone. Wanna buy a Buell????? Gotta buy gas for the snowblower so I can get to work tomorrow. I don't hear of many CEO's blowing their own snow (unless it's the illegal kind of snow). YMMV. Then what you are advocating isn't the equality that Bill is advocating. You want a progressive share in the losses and a regressive share in the rewards. If the company loses money, it's fair for the higher paid to experience a LARGER share of the losses, but if the company makes money it fair for the higher paid to experience a SMALLER share of the gains. Things are either "equal" or they aren't. When a company starts operations January 1st, what guarantee do they have that they will MAKE MONEY by 12/31? None. Did you, as the line worker do YOUR work? Did the CEO? Just because a company doesn't make money doesn't mean that the CEO didn't to their job. Good companies and good CEO's work for companies that lose money. When you agree to work for a company, you negotiate a wage. That wage is for the work you do not necessarily whether the company makes money or not. The company may have a bonus structure that reflects profit or loss, but most line workers don't. When a CEO agrees to a compensation agreement, there is usually a base plus bonus agreement. That CEO, working for a company who lost money, may have expected to earn $52M plus a 20% bonus based upon profits. He may not have earned the other part of his compensation. He did the work for his $52M portion just like the line worker attached part A to socket B every day for 51 weeks and a week off for vacation. Economic impact isn't really the question here. It's the fairness in the realization of risk and reward. If you want a greater share of the rewards of profitability, you must also be willing to receive a greater share of the risks. If you remove the upside of the rewards, you will limit the number of folks willing to take the risks. | ||
| Strokizator |
Court, Perhaps I was wrong to associate athletes with CEOs. An owner agrees to a compensation package with a player in anticipation of him being worth the money while a CEO is generally paid a bonus based upon performance for the year-ending. Except now bonuses seem to have nothing to do with whether or not a company was profitable. Lots of over-paid (in the owner's view) athletes out there as is evidenced by those whose options aren't picked up or released as free agents. My point being that people should be equally outraged at underperforming athletes as they appear to be about an underperforming CEO. Just don't get me started on actors. Didn't I just read that Cameron Diaz got $30 million for doing voice overs on Shreck? Do little kids even care about celebrity voices? | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Ultimately, though, you can't keep people, team owners, or corporations from paying what they feel is reasonable for what they feel is valuable. Are we going to say that people can't buy a $1.9M Veyron car because no one should buy a car worth more than $500,000? If you are the only one who produces a particular good or service, are you going to accept limitations on what someone else can pay for those goods or services? CEOs are hired because they are believed to have relationships, skills, and abilities that will allow a company to make a profit. Sometimes that profit materializes. Sometimes it doesn't. If a first draft pick receiver doesn't perform, the franchise is still required to honor the compensation agreement. The percentage paid to CEOs as a total of the overall revenues of the company is tiny. The larger the company, the smaller the percentage the CEO comp is The largest compensation paid to the "CEO" of a company lies with small closely held companies. I am a sole proprietor with no employees. My compensation is 100% of my net revenues. Is that unfair? Don't confuse NOMINAL dollars with proportionate compensation. It's a trap of class warfare misery pimps. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Actually, if you do take federal student loans, they do tell you were you can go to college, because not all higher institutions accept them. It is the reason I graduated from a state school than from that private school that I had started at. Not sure about that... 4 of my 6 years of schooling were at private institutions and funded by government loans. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
'From Each according to his ability, to each according to his need.' Is Karl Marx and one of the founding precepts used by Lenin to advocate Communism (socialism's big twin brother) I could care a gawd wit of what companies want to pay their employees, more power to em, the second the government has to pay for it, then I get just a might bit upset. Capitalism is a supply and demand survival of the fittest economic machine that the government should stay the hell out of. If the companies cant build, sustain, sell, market and distribute viable products; then they should FAIL and fall on the sword of their own mismanagement. I dont see anybody rushing to bail out DeLorean, The double edge cut of this is that the Government has NO accountability for where the bail out money went to, but just try and skimp on your taxes next year as the little guy, you will hearing from the men at the IRS. Hundreds of years ago, they would have rioted in the streets for less. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Capitalism is a supply and demand survival of the fittest economic machine that the government should stay the hell out of. If the companies cant build, sustain, sell, market and distribute viable products; then they should FAIL and fall on the sword of their own mismanagement. I dont see anybody rushing to bail out DeLorean, This would work in a sealed economy, but we're global, and when others (like the Japanese) inject "freebie" tax-payer funds into big companies to boost product development, others will likely fail without similar backup. And DeLorean didn't employ hundreds of thousands of American workers. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
This would work in a sealed economy, but we're global, and when others (like the Japanese) inject "freebie" tax-payer funds into big companies to boost product development, others will likely fail without similar backup. And DeLorean didn't employ hundreds of thousands of American workers. Why don't we reduce the Federal corporate tax rate? That would boost product development. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I don't know if we could reduce taxes to the point that an entire brand new vehicle could be developed (a la Prius). | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
40% of earnings is pretty steep. I'd bet you could create a hell of a Prius with 40% of earnings. Maybe if taxes were 15% instead of 40%, companies would work harder to maximize earnings instead of working to minimize taxes. Even a 10% decrease in corporate taxes could produce enough to develop whatever car they thought they could market. | ||
| Xl1200r |
40% of earnings is pretty steep. I'd bet you could create a hell of a Prius with 40% of earnings. Not with negative cash flow, lol. In all seriousness, the Toyota Prius cost $1 billion to develop by the time it went on sale in 1997, and the Chevy Volt is expected to cost around $750 million. That *could* be made up in taxes, assuming the company is making enough. Right now, Toyota is estimating a $555 million profit for 2008. Taxes or no taxes, a new vehicle can't be developed on that. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Net income for Toyota for 2007 was $13.67B. This year is a blip. The Prius wasn't developed in a year. Neither was the Volt. It wouldn't take much in the way of tax benefits to develop either a Volt or a Prius over the 4 year period that it took to develop both. $250M a year over 4 year would be like a 5% reduction in corporate taxes. | ||
| Oldog |
40% of earnings is pretty steep. I'd bet you could create a hell of a Prius with 40% of earnings. Imo part of the question is will they spend it or, save it, or divedend, or exec bonus? If "they" use it for growth and developement sounds good, the cultural issue relates to if they don't and what is done with the money then. the culture and habbits of all institutions must change. I agree with Cslicker, the second tax money is handed out to who ever, they must be totaly accountable, and OUR geniouses in washington omitted that little jewel of informantion. } | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
If they blow it and cease to be competitive by producing competitive products, they cease to exist. Why the hell would we want to save a company that can't stand on it's own two feet regardless of how many people they employ? If GM folded tomorrow, would at least some of those people buy Ford, Chrysler, Honda, and Toyota cars? Would that not mean an increase in sales for those companies? Would those companies not need workers to produce those vehicles? We had a huge influx of people in my part of the country. Why? Nissan built a huge plant. GM built a huge plant. Nissan moved their national headquarters from CA to TN. If you are in the auto industry and your company fails and you want to remain in that industry, you go where the jobs are. When the Preditors play the Red Wings, the stadium is 50/50. There are so many former Michigan residents in middle TN right now (including my next door neighbor). Tax money shouldn't have been handed out UNTIL the tough cuts had been made. We just threw several billion dollars into a dark hole. We will never see that money again. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Net income for Toyota for 2007 was $13.67B. This year is a blip. The Prius wasn't developed in a year. Neither was the Volt. All good points, I just wonder how long it will be before profits like that are the norm again. I didn't think of the multi-year development effort, so yes, a tax reduction could fund new vehicles. I don't know if it might also have the ability to fund new vehicles for foreign companies operating in this country. I'm not familiar enough with the tax system. the culture and habbits of all institutions must change. I agree with Cslicker, the second tax money is handed out to who ever, they must be totaly accountable, and OUR geniouses in washington omitted that little jewel of informantion. Why does nobody get this riled up about goverment handout programs that you are garunteed not see the money back or get much eceonomic stimulation from? | ||
| Mikej |
"Then what you are advocating isn't the equality that Bill is advocating. " I wasn't advocating anything, I was just making an observation and stating what other's have observed in the past. "You want a progressive share in the losses and a regressive share in the rewards. " I didn't say that at all. "If you want a greater share of the rewards of profitability, you must also be willing to receive a greater share of the risks. " No argument here. "If you remove the upside of the rewards, you will limit the number of folks willing to take the risks. " That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as it would remove those only interested in the profit of the venture, and keep those interested in improving things for the sake of just doing a good job. Some people only do what will make them a buck and only for the buck they will make. Others do things because they enjoy doing them and get satisfaction from doing great things, and the money is often secondary to those folks. Either type can do well for a company, but one will pull the silver plug on their way out and let the ship sink while the other one will keep trying to keep the ship afloat until all aboard are safely ashore. Do you want a Captain of the ship who is the last one on board or a Captain who is in the first lifeboat away? Time will tell the outcome, I hope for the best, but I do have concerns. Enjoy the debate, I'll be out in the garage rebuilding a couple of bicycles. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Obama will save use from ourselves. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as it would remove those only interested in the profit of the venture, and keep those interested in improving things for the sake of just doing a good job. Some people only do what will make them a buck and only for the buck they will make. Others do things because they enjoy doing them and get satisfaction from doing great things, and the money is often secondary to those folks. Either type can do well for a company, but one will pull the silver plug on their way out and let the ship sink while the other one will keep trying to keep the ship afloat until all aboard are safely ashore. Do you want a Captain of the ship who is the last one on board or a Captain who is in the first lifeboat away? I believe the majority of American workers wants to to a good job for the satisfaction of doing a good job. The problem is that satisfaction don't pay the bills. Everyone wants to do the best economically they can. The profit motivator is what drives people to work longer hours for overtime, to take classes or job training in order to move up in the job ranks, to decide that I can do this job better than my employer and the clients like me better any way. If you remove the profit motivator, you kill the American economy. It doesn't matter whether you make $25,000 per year or make $25M, there has to be a reason beyond just the satisfaction of what you are doing to get you out of bed in the morning. VERY FEW CEOs are the skunky people you describe. | ||
| Oldog |
Why does nobody get this riled up about goverment handout programs that you are garunteed not see the money back or get much eceonomic stimulation from? XL1200R I wish that I could quote the entire piece about the rise and fall of a democracy there is a point in the list where the treasury is handed out to the citizens, My being riled up wont change it, My being aware and Voting at election time will, the problem is that many have had the Koolaid of "change" now we will see, I am disappointed in some of washingtons' responces, to the messes that THEY HELPED MAKE For example lending for homes was strict for a reason and it helped limit speculation and exposure to bad debit. With the rule change specualtion became EZ money ( flipping houses ) that helped drive the housing bubble. which is one facet of why we are here, executive greed and the loosening of the rules, are part of what caused this crunch. It goes back to the thinking and culture of an orginization, group, society, business, etc.... These folks [polit's ] are the ones in my mind who in part profitied from the staggering growth of Fmae / Fmac but suffered no loss from the implosion and bailout, also they took profits knowing the position that the firms were getting into. Sadly the appropriate thing in that case would be to collect all of that money and return it to the treasury, Unfortunatly you set a dangerous precident by doing so. so it is best not to. Personaly like you I hold out little hope that PeBO will make good contributions to the nation, I think that it will be more SOS I sooo want to be wrong. } | ||
| Mikej |
"I believe the majority of American workers wants to to a good job for the satisfaction of doing a good job. The problem is that satisfaction don't pay the bills. Everyone wants to do the best economically they can. The profit motivator is what drives people to work longer hours for overtime, to take classes or job training in order to move up in the job ranks, to decide that I can do this job better than my employer and the clients like me better any way. If you remove the profit motivator, you kill the American economy. It doesn't matter whether you make $25,000 per year or make $25M, there has to be a reason beyond just the satisfaction of what you are doing to get you out of bed in the morning. VERY FEW CEOs are the skunky people you describe. " Where did I call anyone "skunky"? And I think I'm reading a conflict into what you wrote: "I believe the majority of American workers wants to to a good job for the satisfaction of doing a good job." "If you remove the profit motivator, you kill the American economy. " I can make more money flipping burgers at McD's than I can repairing bicycles, yet I'd rather ask "do you want a tube with that" instead of asking "do you want fries with that". My "profit motivation" is secondary in my secondary job choice, but it's only a seasonal job so not totally relevant. My "profit motivation" did finally kick in and I recently gave up on another part-time occupation since it was costing more to do that it was bringing in, I enjoyed it but it no longer made economic sense to continue it. Maybe I'll go work off-hours at a hardware store, I'd rather work at a bookstore but they only want full timers. And in case you missed the math, I've been juggling three jobs to pay the bills. There was a recent news highlight locally where a business man gave up his lucrative career to start up a small sports related sports complex where they train kids. He said he's working 12 hours days, making much less money than he used to, but is much happier now. Profit is not always defined by cash. Cash is not always the prime motivator. But I've gotta run now, trying to get a few things done in case the layoff axe hits. Maybe I'll move to middle TN if that's where all the jobs are now. bye. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I am disappointed in some of washingtons' responces, to the messes that THEY HELPED MAKE This is a point that many aren't aware of, or choose to ignore. Thanks for bringing that up. |
