Kruciff
Old Man from scene 24
Posts: 12,190
Joined: Jul 2011
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I Root For: The Bridge of Death
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RE: OT: How Millennials are killing the Big12 Conference
(08-15-2017 09:30 AM)sfink16 Wrote: (08-15-2017 08:49 AM)Kruciff Wrote: (08-15-2017 07:45 AM)sfink16 Wrote: (08-15-2017 12:01 AM)TU4ever Wrote: (08-14-2017 08:25 PM)sfink16 Wrote: If it's that easy to run a small business with profits, why isn't everyone doing it? Why do most actual fail? Why don't people like you even try to run a small business? I can answer the last question, because you know nothing about running a small business.
As for competitive wage, define what it is. I never see it defined. If I offered you $1,000 an hour, I'd have to offer you supervisor more then that, perhaps $2,000 and hour. Does my profit margin allow me to do that? Of course not.
Will my product sell at the rate I need to charge if I raise my wage expenses? Can consumers afford the cost I need to raise my prices for the product I sell? Does that product eventually disappear, like shoe manufactures or camera manufactures here in America? Try to find a shoe manufacturer in America or a camera maker, good luck.
Camera maker? Is it the 1980s? Pretty sure that Nike is based in Oregon. Further the overall percentage of manufacturing in the united states as part of gdp has remained flat since the 1970s, what has gone down is the number of employees in manufacturing, largely due to the same reason why ma bell is gone and there aren't camera makers anymore, technology. Most manufacturing companies dont meet the traditional small business model anyway, but lets just overlook those facts and move forward.
A few things here.
Henry Ford paid his workers some of the best wages in world, when asked why he basically replied what good is a product your employees can't buy? So if you want to have a successful business you should probably pay your employees competitive wages.
As to what a competitive wage is? Well that changes depending on time, employment percentages, etc. . . You know that funny thing the market. See my labor is worth whatever the market says it is worth, so if you're not willing to pay the price or are unable to the market has deemed your business a failure.
Again all businesses are participating in the same market and opperating under the same rules. So why are some successful and some not? The people who run them I would guess. The same ones who scream free market with out understanding what it means.
I swear some businesses would push for slavery again and ***** about profit loss because the state said you can't beat them. This country already offers you the freedom to gain a profit it should not be required to enslave its labor force to ensure said profit.
Also you make some terrible assumptions, about what i do or have done, how old I am, and what causes a business to fail. You're not right on any of them.
I'm glad you used Nike as an example. From Wikipedia, with sources inside:
Quote:Nike has been criticized for contracting with factories (known as Nike sweatshops) in countries such as China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico. Vietnam Labor Watch, an activist group, has documented that factories contracted by Nike have violated minimum wage and overtime laws in Vietnam as late as 1996
Nike and your other example Ford are not small businesses and do not fit the argument but Nike in particular points out that companies of all sizes are in it for profit. Why else go into business?
No one is going to pay employees more then they produce. Why should they? If they can use robots to flip hamburgers, why not? Robots don't call in sick, need vacations, or need medical insurance. You wonder why manufacturer jobs have gone flat. Think about it. All businesses are in it for profit. All businesses have expenses (employees, taxes, regulations, etc.).
These expenses affect one another. High taxes and regulations (not under businesses control) do require employee considerations (under business control). Limit taxes and regulations and your can provide more for employee. Raising wages sounds great, and if the market demands it, great! But let the market decide, not regulations and taxes.
Your biggest flaw in your assumption is your trickle down economics bias.
You assume that if companies have an easier go at making a profit, they will (out of the goodness of their hearts) pass that on to their employees. If the past decade has taught us anything, that assumption is patently false.
My reasoning here is this. Companies, big and small, have the resources to squeeze a profit any way they can, and they will do so in a heartbeat. If turning the U.S. into a smog ridden wasteland of blissful economic efficiency will turn a few dollars more per year, it makes competitive sense to do so.
Employees in the US don't have this power. They do in many other nations in the EU, and those countries are doing just fine WITH an employee base that is well taken care of.
And, to your point, there is a big difference between large and small businesses. Personally I think regulation and taxation should scale with an individual companies ability to affect the market (i.e. Your mom and pop credit union versus the too big to fail banks), but in comparison to every other successful democratic first world country, the US is far too lenient on it's corporations altogether.
This leniency, I believe, directly results in the social divisions and poverty levels you see today, as well as the cultural tensions, but that's another conversation.
But the last decade was mostly under higher taxes under the Obama administration which produced a 1.7% GDP, lowest of any administration since WWII. The Obama administration certainly can't be accused of trickle down. Even Obama himself agreed that the US corporate tax rate is too high.
FWIW, I have no problem removing the many loopholes in personal tax found by many rich tax payer accountants but do not feel the same when it comes to big and small businesses. It's not the tax rate that matters, it's the effective tax rate that matters.
As for what companies may or may not do as far as hiring and wages, much of that depends on supply and demand. If the companies have employee needs to be filled due to expansion, and competition for those highly trained employees is fierce, then yes companies will hire more and pay more. If not, you're right, the employees will not benefit. That's called capitalism where if the economy grows, everyone wins!
As for the EU, if it wasn't for the US and it's massive support behind NATO, Russia would overtake them in a decade or less. The EU doesn't spend enough to defend themselves without the US, who spends more then any other nation on defense. Keeping their defense expenditure relatively small does help the EU nations yet their GDP levels of some, including Greece, are tiny in comparison. Even with the military spending burden mostly removed, the GDP Annual Growth Rate in European Union averaged 1.72 percent from 1996 until 2017, not exactly meteoric rise.
In some ways I agree with you on corporation taxes. In 2010 GE made $14 billion dollars in profit worldwide ($5 billion US) and paid ZERO federal tax dollars (according to Warren Buffet although I've seen other numbers elsewhere). The same year ExxonMobil paid 45% federal taxes. This discrepancy does need to be fixed. Level the playing field where accountants don't make all the differences in the world of taxes.
Quote:But the last decade was mostly under higher taxes under the Obama administration which produced a 1.7% GDP, lowest of any administration since WWII. The Obama administration certainly can't be accused of trickle down. Even Obama himself agreed that the US corporate tax rate is too high.
You misunderstand me. We've only see the effects of this trickle down economic policy in the past decade. The cause of this transformation of power from the people to the companies started as far back as Reagan, and probably earlier. It is flawed logic through and through to assume that a rising tide lifts all boats in this case.
Quote:FWIW, I have no problem removing the many loopholes in personal tax found by many rich tax payer accountants but do not feel the same when it comes to big and small businesses. It's not the tax rate that matters, it's the effective tax rate that matters.
I appreciate your olive branch, but I think all loopholes should be closed. The Government budget is a zero sum game. If tax revenue is lowered, cuts to government programs have to follow. We can no longer justify the curbing of social safety nets like welfare and Medicaid, under the guise of Capitalism. Go to any other modern country in the world, see their infrastructure, public transportation, welfare and poverty levels, and then compare that to anywhere in New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston, Baltimore...
Quote:As for what companies may or may not do as far as hiring and wages, much of that depends on supply and demand. If the companies have employee needs to be filled due to expansion, and competition for those highly trained employees is fierce, then yes companies will hire more and pay more. If not, you're right, the employees will not benefit. That's called capitalism where if the economy grows, everyone wins!
I love Capitalism to a point. Eventually though, every capitalistic program runs into the problem of the expectation of infinite growth, which is impossible. In the end, we need to stop treating companies as people, and focus more on the rights and welfare of the people themselves. Successful companies will be just fine. Individuals don't have the resources, generally, to "pick themselves up by their bootstraps" in this day and age.
Quote:As for the EU, if it wasn't for the US and it's massive support behind NATO, Russia would overtake them in a decade or less. The EU doesn't spend enough to defend themselves without the US, who spends more then any other nation on defense. Keeping their defense expenditure relatively small does help the EU nations yet their GDP levels of some, including Greece, are tiny in comparison. Even with the military spending burden mostly removed...
I really doubt that. With the economic power of Germany, Norway, and the UK (even though they are leaving) Russia is just a speck.
Yes, the EU needs to spend their fair share on defense, but it's not like we spend more on defense for charity.
If you analyze the situation, it's in our economic interest to defend the EU. If the European Union were to collapse, so would nearly every level of our economy. Money loves stability, and if we send weapons and soldiers to defend our financial and allied interests we accomplish stability and justify $700 billion per year in defense spending, going into the pockets of the primary defense contractors in Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon. So your point comes back full circle; the EU benefits directly from the Corporation and Economics first stance that the US takes, and they are taking full advantage of it.
Maybe if Trump did what he promised, and put America REALLY first, and cut back on the Defense budget to focus on American Workers and American Infrastructure, maybe we wouldn't be in such dire straits as we are, but no one really expected him to actually do something right.
(This post was last modified: 08-15-2017 02:05 PM by Kruciff.)
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