(01-01-2009 09:38 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Um, yeah I know that but why is it necessary to maximize profits at the expense of the workers? THe people who allow the company to make a profit.

Because maximizing profits is what business is about. And if they can't do it here, but can somewhere else, that's where they'll take their jobs. Because if they don't, the competition will, and they'll be out of business. How and why would you expect a different result?

(01-01-2009 09:18 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Hey wait a minute! I thought that was $70 /hour? What do you make a year? I think you are being overpaid for what you do too.

So you have a problem with making enough money for a family to live comfortably? You also believe only people with college degrees should be able to provide for their families without having to work many OT hours or have a second job? I find it sad that you care more about the profits of a business than human beings.

$70 and hour is about what it costs to employ a UAW worker when you include all his benefits.

I don't have a problem with people making as much money as they can but they have to be realistic. Do you think a small business could afford paying a cashier $100,000 for doing that job? A job that requires very little skill sets, education or intelligence probably isn't going to pay as much as a college educated accountant, lawyer or anything else. This is America, the land of opportunity, and everyone has a chance to improve their lot by hard work and education but please don't confuse the word opportunity with entitlement. The minimum wage cashier mentioned above has every opportunity to sell her skills to whoever is willing to pay for them and the more skills she has the more marketable/valuable she'll become.

Another part of business is budgeting. If a company only has X amount of money then that's all they can spend and they pay salaries accordingly. No one is forcing a person who feels under paid to stay with an employer.

And I don't care more about businesses than humans, but what I just wrote is reality and you can accept it or reject it but you'll never change it.

One big problem that hasn't gotten enough attention. When you go from a manufacturing economy to a service/retail economy, the blue collar jobs you have aren't worth as much. An employer can't pay somebody as much to deliver a pizza as to run a steel mill.

(01-01-2009 09:18 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(01-01-2009 08:14 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  In order to keep jobs in this country we'll need to limit unions. Why does a union worker need to be paid $28 to work on an assembly line putting knobs on radios when the company can have the radio assembled in China and not have to pay the high salaries, insurance, etc? The same goes for call centers.

Somehow we've developed into a country where everyone feels they're entitled to an easy job that pays $100,000 even though they have no skills or education. It's no wonder that illegal alien workers are needed to do the jobs Americans won't do.

Hey wait a minute! I thought that was $70 /hour? What do you make a year? I think you are being overpaid for what you do too.

So you have a problem with making enough money for a family to live comfortably? You also believe only people with college degrees should be able to provide for their families without having to work many OT hours or have a second job? I find it sad that you care more about the profits of a business than human beings.

Must be a language barrier.

Steve said "$28 to work on an assembly line putting knobs on radios". That's a minimum wage job, Robert. You don't think $28 is insanely out of line for putting knobs on a radio? How can you say Steve is overpaid? You don't know what he does or what he makes. Why do you think people who don't bother with an education or training are entitled to $100,000 a year? Why shouldn't their standard of living be based on what they are willing to do? Why shouldn't educated people earn more. A persons life should be what they make of it. No one should be coasting through life without hard work.

You have to pay people what they are worth. If they don't contribute much, then you can't pay them much. If what you can afford to pay them isn't enough for them to live the lifestyle that they want, then they can work a second job, or develop some skills that make them more marketable, or in some cases just get off their rear ends and actually do some work.

If you pay people more than they are worth, then you end up where the Big Three automakers are--unable to compete successfully with other folks who don't pay their people more than they are worth. Then you go out of business and all those overpaid people lose their jobs.

It's really pretty straightforward.

(01-01-2009 10:23 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  You have to pay people what they are worth. If they don't contribute much, then you can't pay them much. If what you can afford to pay them isn't enough for them to live the lifestyle that they want, then they can work a second job, or develop some skills that make them more marketable, or in some cases just get off their rear ends and actually do some work.

If you pay people more than they are worth, then you end up where the Big Three automakers are--unable to compete successfully with other folks who don't pay their people more than they are worth. Then you go out of business and all those overpaid people lose their jobs.

It's really pretty straightforward.

It certainly is.

RobertN, You care and bash Bush about vacation days, but you could care less that Clinton was getting his knob polished in the Oval office with a 20 something intern. Ahhh, but he was just using her VJ as a cigar holder.

(01-01-2009 06:59 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  As I have said before. Bush's legacy will be that he ushered socialism to America and left capitalism as roadkill. He put the path of America squarely in the hands of the Banks and the Multi-National Corp. Socialism as a golbalization tool.

(01-01-2009 11:55 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(01-01-2009 06:59 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  As I have said before. Bush's legacy will be that he ushered socialism to America and left capitalism as roadkill. He put the path of America squarely in the hands of the Banks and the Multi-National Corp. Socialism as a golbalization tool.

How can you be confused? Do you not know what the words mean, or do you not believe that's what happened?

Don't mean that to be rude, and I apologize if it comes across that way. I'm just flabbergasted by that reaction. Shrub has pulled off the amazing feat of making people hate conservatives without being conservative.

I agree with my good friend Jim Rogers, we're becoming more socialistic than China.

(01-02-2009 12:04 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I agree with my good friend Jim Rogers, we're becoming more socialistic than China.

Yeah, but this has been creeping in on us for about the last 15 Years though and seems to be gaining momentum fairly quickly.

It gets easier to see this Socialistic/Communistic Trend become more defined as each Congressional Cycle passes.

We have actually moved away from being Border Line Fascist, to racing toward Blanket Socialism.

I think I would rather be a bunch of Free Enterprise Soft Fascist than Dead in the Soul Uber-Socialist/Communist.

We "absolutely know" Socialism/Communism simply does not and never will work .... so why we are headed there like a Bullet Train on Meth, kind of throws me a bit.

.

Because we're Americans and we're too hard-headed to learn from anyone else.

So we're going to spend the next 50 years making the mistakes that they've made for the last 50--in many cases, mistakes that they're learning from now, so they'll be 50 years ahead of us going forward. Not a pretty picture.

1.) He kept my taxes low.
2.) Save the people of NYC and NO
3.) Prevented another great depression
4.) Saved the auto industry
5.) Saved babies by preventing stem cell research
6.) Promoted abstinance while at the same time getting some from Laura
7.) Raised 2 great daughters, one of whom wrote a book
8.) Fought for the values of real America
9.) Never flip-floped or claimed that he invented the Internets
10.) Sent me a check in mail twice!

(01-02-2009 03:53 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  1.) He kept my taxes low.
2.) Save the people of NYC and NO
3.) Prevented another great depression
4.) Saved the auto industry
5.) Saved babies by preventing stem cell research
6.) Promoted abstinance while at the same time getting some from Laura
7.) Raised 2 great daughters, one of whom wrote a book
8.) Fought for the values of real America
9.) Never flip-floped or claimed that he invented the Internets

10.) Sent me a check in mail twice!

Are you sure you don't have him mixed up with Ed McMahon ????

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(01-01-2009 10:23 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  You have to pay people what they are worth. If they don't contribute much, then you can't pay them much. If what you can afford to pay them isn't enough for them to live the lifestyle that they want, then they can work a second job, or develop some skills that make them more marketable, or in some cases just get off their rear ends and actually do some work.

If you pay people more than they are worth, then you end up where the Big Three automakers are--unable to compete successfully with other folks who don't pay their people more than they are worth. Then you go out of business and all those overpaid people lose their jobs.

It's really pretty straightforward.

So do you feel the same way about executives who are overpaid? Such as ones who get paid millions of dollars to run failing companies into the ground. Don't our executives make more the 10 times their counterparts. Why do Republicans insist of lowering the pay of the people who actually do the work and allow executives their excessive salaries and their golden parachutes?

Bush's legacy is that he stopped just short of presiding over the complete destruction and mothballing of the constitution in favor of warhawks, religious fanatics, and business cronies seeking to **** everyone for their own gain.

(01-02-2009 05:00 PM)uhmump95 Wrote:  So do you feel the same way about executives who are overpaid? Such as ones who get paid millions of dollars to run failing companies into the ground. Don't our executives make more the 10 times their counterparts. Why do Republicans insist of lowering the pay of the people who actually do the work and allow executives their excessive salaries and their golden parachutes?

Absolutely.

I wouldn't go blaming the republicans exclusively for this one, though. There are at least as many examples of democrats doing/permitting the same thing. One of the most outspoken democrat supporters, Michael Eisner, is one of the worst offenders.

Most of the countries that we compete with, by law or by custom, restrict compensation of the highest-paid employee to some multiple of what is paid to the lowest-paid employee. We tried to do that, but to get the votes (republican and democrat) to pass it, we had to limit it to the fixed portion of compensation. The incentive portion remained unregulated. So, guess what? Everybody signed CEOs to these contracts with obscene incentive bonuses for hitting EPS or stock price targets. Ths led to big layoffs to cut costs to hit the targets. When that wasn't enough, people started cooking the books a bit. Ever heard of Enron? Worldcomm? If I'm getting a $100 million bonus if I can get EPS to $20.00, and EPS is $19.95, compare my incentives to cheat to my incentives to cook things a bit.

It's funny, but the excuse always given is, "We can't restrict CEO pay, we have to pay enough to meet the competition." If the competition is similarly restricted, where is the problem?

I don't know that I'd favor out-and-out prohibition. You could certainly do something like a requirement that if the bonus exceeds the multiple, the contractual agreement to pay it has to be ratified by a shareholder vote, and that contract has to make the payment of the bonus contingent on a second shareholder vote once the prerequisites are met. Or you could just say that if the bonus exceeds the multiple, the part that exceeds the bonus is not deductible by the corporation for tax purposes. That would make for some intersting shareholder meetings.

But you are right, management stands in quicksand arguing that labor should not be paid more, when they've done a few really shaky things themselves.

(01-02-2009 05:06 PM)Artifice Wrote:  Bush's legacy is that he stopped just short of presiding over the complete destruction and mothballing of the constitution in favor of warhawks, religious fanatics, and business cronies seeking to **** everyone for their own gain.

My prediction is that Obama's legacy will be that he completed whatever destruction Shrub left undone. Although the longer things go on, the less Shrub seems to be leaving undone.

The problem is that the forces driving our economic collapse are bigger than Shrub or Obama. We are losing our manufacturing base because our combination of tax, regulatory, and litigation policies make us a less favorable place to manaufcture things than overseas. Reagan, GHWB, and Clinton managed to forestall it for a while by keeping our taxes lower than the rest of the world. But that's not the case any more. Without that advantage, we have precious few advantages to offer. And Obama isn't talking about making any moves that will help that problem.

(01-01-2009 07:38 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Robert, what is your field anyway? What do you do for a living? What is your educational background?

Engineering(I learned to build bombs). I do fundraising for many Muslim terrorists. I went to a medrasa as a kid. :shhhh:Don't tell anyone ok?

Note to the authorities who are reading this-it was a joke. None of those things are true. It was a comment based on the people here calling me Al Robert.

(01-02-2009 07:33 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(01-01-2009 07:38 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Robert, what is your field anyway? What do you do for a living? What is your educational background?

Engineering(I learned to build bombs). I do fundraising for many Muslim terrorists. I went to a medrasa as a kid. :shhhh:Don't tell anyone ok?
Note to the authorities who are reading this-it was a joke. None of those things are true. It was a comment based on the people here calling me Al Robert.

It was a serious question. You've been opining on a lot of issues, and I was wondering if any of them were in areas where you have any expertise.

(01-02-2009 07:33 PM)RobertN Wrote:  It was a comment based on the people here calling me Al Robert.

Robert ... you and I have called each other many names, titles, and things, but you can honestly say I have never called you Al-N Robert.

I figure you more of a Robert Putin ....

JUST KIDDING !!!!!!!

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