All Union Brothers and Sisters

[Urchin]

Steve, I'll fully admit that I'm "ignorant" in economic knowledge.  So.. your argument is mainly that if the minimum wage goes up, rich people will no longer be as wealthy vis a vis the rest of society, so they will raise the prices of everything to maintain the inequality?  

Just explain to me how this is good for the country, that is all I want.  I honestly don't understand how it could be.  If you can convince me that it actually is, I swear to Christ I'll run down and change my little voter registration to "Republican" and happily vote against my interests.  

Just some random stuff from one of the biased sources  I found earlier.  

"In 1992, the richest 1 percent of American households owned about 42 percent of the total national wealth; whereas in 1982, the richest 1 percent owned 32%. (Herbert 1995) "

"In 1995, the top 20 percent of American households owned more than 80 percent of the national wealth. (Herbert 1995) (Sandel 1996: 329) "

"In 1997, 50 percent of all financial assets in the US were owned by the wealthiest 1 percent of the population; and more than 75 percent of all financial assets were owned by the wealthiest 10 percent. (Cassidy 1997: 255) "

"The share of marketable net worth held by the wealthiest 1 percent of American families fell 10% between 1945 and 1976, and then increased 34% between 1976 and 1983, and increased a further 39% between 1983 and 1989. Meanwhile, the share of wealth held by the bottom 80% fell by more than 20% between 1976 and 1989; by 1989, the bottom 80% of American families owned only 15% of the net worth in the U.S. Financial net worth is distributed even more unequally: in 1989, the top 1 percent of families owned 48% of the total financial wealth; while the top 20% owned 94%. (Herbert 1996a) "


Surely you see the trend here?  Unless I made a grevious error in my Ripsnorting, those should be arranged roughly in chronological order, except for the last one.

So tell me, why is this good[/b] for the country?  How can you possibly think this is anything but larceny?

[Steve]

Urchin, what you've posted has NOTHING top do with raising wages.

So.. your argument is mainly that if the minimum wage goes up, rich people will no longer be as wealthy vis a vis the rest of society, so they will raise the prices of everything to maintain the inequality?

No my argument has nothing to do with this.

[GRUNHERZ]

Urchin do you pay the cabdriver $5,000 to drive you to the local airport?

[Steve]

So tell me, why is this good for the country? How can you possibly think this is anything but larceny?

Because people become wealthy and successful they are thieves?
It is somehow the fault of the successful that  average/below achievers aren't wealthy?

[Urchin]

I don't pay the cabdriver anything to take me to the airport.   Hell, I've never actually been in a cab, to the best of my knowledge.  

Steve, then you've lost me.  I have no idea what your argument is about.  Can you dumb it down for me?

[Sled]

Example: Raise the minimum wage to let's say, $25.00 an hour. That's great right? Now even people who work at Mcdonald's can afford a nice big house, right?

It is difficult to make legitimate points using absurd examples.

No union is going to raise wages to the point of running the company out of business. That equals no work.  Unions are supposed to be there to make sure the worker makes fair wage compared to the amount of money the company is taking in.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by Urchin
I don't pay the cabdriver anything to take me to the airport.   Hell, I've never actually been in a cab, to the best of my knowledge.  

Steve, then you've lost me.  I have no idea what your argument is about.  Can you dumb it down for me?

Ok. How bout $500 for a bus ride to the other end of town?

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by SLED
It is difficult to make legitimate points using absurd examples.

No union is going to raise wages to the point of running the company out of business. That equals no work.  Unions are supposed to be there to make sure the worker makes fair wage compared to the amount of money the company is taking in.

No they will just ask and ask for more until trhe company gets tired of the fleecing and unproductivity and moves production elsewhee if they can...

[Steve]

It is difficult to make legitimate points using absurd examples.

Sled, I was being dramatic to make a point.  Allow me to simplify:

Any raise in wages is going to impact the price of goods/services offered by the employer, causing said goods/services to be more expensive.  Thus the consumers(you, me, and the very employees we are discussing) are the ones who bear the burden for a raised minimum wage/ artificially raised wages.


Urchin, I hope this clears up the point I'm trying to make.

[Steve]

No union is going to raise wages to the point of running the company out of business.

oh?

It was a losing battle. The union big shot filled the union workers full of "brothers and sisters solidarity" stuff at the union meeting that night. They bought it hook, line and sinker and vowed to strike.The factory was moved, the workers lost their jobs, the union guy went back to New York and I ended my career as a turnaround specialist

[JB88]

well. not all of them.  and i have to say that i am tossed as to whether i would like a machine to take my order or the trash mouthing snot who glares at me for making exact change from my coin tray after i have pulled forward without being given a total.  

the thing is, i agree that a free market should dictate wages, but i am not opposed to a minimum wage either.  noone can really make a living off of it anyway so it is a good starter arrangement for kids and retirees right?

what bothers me most is that executives continue to raise thier own salaries when companies are showing negative profits and stocks are declining.  in my view, this is immoral and i would like to see a substantial social reaction against it.  what it effectively says is that the captan is not accountable for the state of his ship.

does this mean that i am pro union?  not really.  i dont belong to one and probably wont but i know people who do and are who make strong arguements for thier existance.
i simply havent  been involved in them, but i can see thier point pretty easilly...just as easilly as i can appreciate free market ideology.

the concept is not flawed.  a union is a representative body whose purpose is to serve as a platform for negotiation.  there is nothing wrong with negotiating from a position of strength and corporations have historically seen fit to
try to stop any form of organization which may be able to counter top executive decisions.

when one side grows too much, the other side shifts to tear it down.

in my opinion unions were successful at closing down sweat shops in our country.  were they to go away, the sweatshop could pop again.

its just rules.  nothing more, nothing less.

[Urchin]

When 1% of the people in a country hold 50% of the money (probably on the low side, it is 8 years old), while the poorest 20% hold 3.5% (that ones current)... I think criminal is a perfectly suitable way to describe how the wealth is distributed.

Just a couple more examples, this might be better suited to the "Unions are commie $ux0r b1tch3s argument".  

From  some different biased source .

"With the poor receding so rapidly in our rearview mirror, here are a few postcards from both edges of the abyss between the "let them eat cake" crowd and the faceless millions on the other side.

Upstairs: Former Kmart CEO Charles Conaway received nearly $23 million in compensation during his two-year tenure.

Downstairs: When Kmart filed for bankruptcy in 2002, 283 stores were closed and 22,000 employees lost their jobs. Total amount of severance pay for them: $0.00.

Upstairs: Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski made nearly $467 million in salary, bonuses and stock during his four years running the company into the ground.

Downstairs: Shareholders lost a massive $92 billion when Tyco's market value plunged.

Upstairs: The CEOs of 23 large companies under investigation by the SEC and other agencies earned 70 percent more than the average CEO, banking a collective $1.4 billion between 1999 and 2001.

Downstairs: Between January 2001 and August 2002, the market value of these 23 companies nose-dived by over $500 billion, or roughly 73 percent. And since January 2001, these companies have laid off over 160,000 employees.

Upstairs: In the year before Enron collapsed, about 100 executives and energy traders collected more than $300 million in cash payments from the company. More than $100 million went to former CEO Kenneth Lay.

Downstairs: After filing for bankruptcy, Enron lost $68 billion in market share, 5,000 employees lost their jobs and Enron workers lost $800 million from their pension funds.

Upstairs: Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. received more than $17 million in total compensation in 2001.

Downstairs: Wal-Mart employees in 30 states are suing the company alleging that managers forced employees to punch out after an eight-hour work day, and then continue working for no pay. Nevermind the Fair Labor Standards Act, which says employees who work more than 40 hours a week must be paid time-and-a-half for their overtime.

Upstairs Penthouse A: Citigroup provided Enron with $8.5 billion in loans disguised as commodity trades. The deals allowed Enron to artificially inflate cash flow and hide debt, which deceptively boosted share price and ultimately led to the company's collapse.

Upstairs Penthouse B: Citigroup offered hot initial public offering shares to WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers and other telecom giants in exchange for their investment banking business. Ebbers is alleged to have made nearly $11 million on IPO shares sold to him by Citigroup.

Downstairs: Citigroup agreed to pay $215 million in fines to the FTC to settle allegations of "predatory lending," loosely defined as mortgage lending that preys on customers, especially ones with bad credit, through abusive practices like deceptive marketing and inflated fees on unnecessary refinancings.

Upstairs: More than 1 million U.S. corporations and individuals have registered as citizens of Bermuda to avoid taxes, a practice OK'd by the IRS. Although the exact number is unknown, the IRS estimates that "tax-motivated expatriation" drains at least $70 billion a year from the U.S. Treasury.

Downstairs: If you were a worker poor enough to apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit in 2001, your chance of being audited was one in 47. If you made more than $100,000 a year, your chance of being audited was one in 208.

Upstairs: The top 1 percent of stock owners hold 47.7 percent of all stocks.

Downstairs: The bottom 80 percent of stock owners own just 4.1 percent of total stock holdings.

Upstairs: In 2000, the average CEO earned more in one day than the average worker earned all year.

Downstairs: In 2000, 25 percent of workers earned less than poverty-level wages.

Upstairs: Between 1990 and 2000, average CEO pay rose 571 percent.

Downstairs: Between 1990 and 2000, average worker pay rose 37 percent.

"

So please, tell me how this can be GOOD for the country?  I already know it isn't "fair", hell, YOU already know it isn't "fair".  We both already know it is immoral, and all kinds of other negative adjectives, even if only one of us is going to come out and say it.  So tell me how it can be GOOD for the country.  

You are the one with the degree in economics, I'm just working from common sense.

[Steve]

what bothers me most is that executives continue to raise thier own salaries when companies are showing negative profits and stocks are declining. in my view, this is immoral and i would like to see a substantial social reaction against it.

I strongly agree.  This kind of greed may not be criminal, but it certainly is unethical.  I think all officers of companies should have a clause in their contracts that prohibits wage/bonus increases(for the officers) when a company is not performing.

[Steve]

You are the one with the degree in economics,

Gosh, I don't remember saying that.

[Steve]

Upstairs: More than 1 million U.S. corporations and individuals have registered as citizens of Bermuda to avoid taxes, a practice OK'd by the IRS. Although the exact number is unknown, the IRS estimates that "tax-motivated expatriation" drains at least $70 billion a year from the U.S. Treasury

This is a crappy loophole, but what does it have to do with the minimum wage?