I miss Jobst

Chalo wrote:
Jay Beattie wrote:
Chalo wrote:
The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those
people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for
capital, mostly. I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful
business plan carried out, but... first things first. Fairly paying
the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the
profit, comes first.
What is an "inequitable profit"?

That would be a profit reaped by capital without labor having gotten a
living wage. First things first, like I said.


Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a
gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't
everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis
sets! Beats working, right?


--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Apr 13, 10:57*pm, Chalo wrote:
The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those
people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for
capital, mostly. *I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful
business plan carried out, but... first things first. *Fairly paying
the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the
profit, comes first.

Chalo

Any free capitalist system will result in most people being quite
poor... subsistence or less. This was discovered quite early at the
beginning of industrialization and capitalism in Europe... and quickly
led to riots, communism, labor unions, socialist reform, etc. That is
why every single developed and prosperous country in the world has
*extensive* wage supports and wealth redistribution via taxes. The
good news is that this results in much greater total wealth if it is
done reasonably well. Production= consumption... and really poor
people make lousy consumers.

Since ~1980 the US has taken a dramatic turn. We still have a minimum
wage, but labor unions are dead... and now we get to compete with the
3rd world for production wages! Taxes on the wealthy have dramatically
dropped... and they are getting richer at an insane rate. The top 1%
has seen a 380% income rise (adjusted for inflation) in the last 30
years, while median wages have been flat. Previous to that (after WW2)
median incomes (and for the top 1%) rose ~100%. All the GDP gains
since 1980 have gone to the wealthy. The easy credit, debt bubble,
"women need to work", and government deficit spending were all schemes
to mask the fact that the economy has sucked for most people.

We were told that globalization would make us all richer. We were sold
out.

AMuzi wrote:

Jay Beattie wrote:

Chalo wrote:

I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful
business plan carried out, but... first things first. *Fairly paying
the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the
profit, comes first.

Chalo, your average gasoline retailer makes between one and
two cents per gallon. Bump that a dollar or so and every
clerk can live like a king.

Last I checked, the petroleum refining companies were racking up $40
billion per year in profit. But a person can't make a living working
full time at a gas station.

So that is a very good example of what I'm talking about.

Or perhaps you wanted higher food costs? Which items do you
think are underpriced now?

The commercial items that don't offer any profit at all when minimum
costs, including labor, are accounted for. Air travel has fallen into
that category for much of the last twenty years.

Some things, like medical and security services or public
transportation systems, should never be for-profit businesses at all,
because it deranges the motives of the providers, confuses their
ethics, and leads inevitably to higher costs for poorer stuff.

Chalo

On Apr 14, 12:14*pm, AMuzi wrote:
Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a
gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't
everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis
sets! Beats working, right?

No one said it was easy, but neither are most jobs. The wealth
distribution has really gone crazy in the last 30 years... loads of
people working for $10/hr with no benefits. When I was a kid, anybody
who wanted to work could support a family on one salary!

Of course every employer wants to pay as little as they can. That is
one key ingredient of why a "free" market results in widespread
poverty. The other is that there will always naturally be an excess of
workers with less than outstanding talents... ie they will have no
bargaining power for higher wages. That is why the natural situation
must be counteracted with laws... but this doesn't hurt employers. If
there was a national law that forced you to pay your employees double
the wage, you'd be no worse off because all your competitors would
have the same expense.

On Apr 14, 3:21*pm, Ron Ruff wrote:
On Apr 14, 12:14*pm, AMuzi wrote:

Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a
gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't
everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis
sets! Beats working, right?

No one said it was easy, but neither are most jobs. The wealth
distribution has really gone crazy in the last 30 years... loads of
people working for $10/hr with no benefits. When I was a kid, anybody
who wanted to work could support a family on one salary!

Of course every employer wants to pay as little as they can. That is
one key ingredient of why a "free" market results in widespread
poverty. The other is that there will always naturally be an excess of
workers with less than outstanding talents... ie they will have no
bargaining power for higher wages. That is why the natural situation
must be counteracted with laws...

There are employers who treat their workers excellently. The owners
of one local manufacturing plant were renowned for fairness and
generosity, to the point that they not only paid a good wage, they
took their employees on vacations and cruises. They donated heavily
to the community, and in fact constructed the first rail-trail multi-
user path in the area, about ten miles long. (They did that
completely with private funds, with no government subsidy nor any
pretense that it was "transportational.")

http://business-journal.com/stavich-...-ysu-p9103.htm

Unfortunately, such people seem to be getting more rare.

I can't imagine why a CEO (or anyone else) deserves an annual income
in the hundreds of millions of dollars, or why the ratio of CEO salary
to worker salary needs to rise beyond what it was in the '80s.

Hmm. Why don't we have CEOs working via the internet? I'm sure there
are some smart folks in Bangalore who would welcome the outsourced
job. They'd gladly do it for (say) a salary just 10 times that of the
average corporate worker. It's not like the guys doing it now are
more brilliant than ever before.

- Frank Krygowski

On Apr 13, 10:46*am, wrote:
On Wed, 13 Apr 2011 05:12:03 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
anyone can provide an update/

Dear Andres,

Jobst is at home with full-time care. He suffered a stroke after his
leg surgery. The last I heard, he was still using a wheelchair and
crutches because the leg isn't weight-bearing.

When I called this morning, he answered the phone and said that he's
recovering.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Hey Carl,

Thanks so much for replying. I Hope that he recovers soon.

On 4/14/2011 11:02 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Tºm Shermªn™ " writes:

On 4/13/2011 8:55 PM, James Steward wrote:
AMuzi wrote:
Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 4/13/2011 10:53 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Apr 13, 2:15 am, Tºm Shermªn™ °_°""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI
$southslope.net" wrote:
On 4/12/2011 6:14 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On Apr 12, 4:07 pm, wrote:

The median wage for a man in Texas is $12/hour. The median wage
for a
woman in Texas is $10/hour. These people don't have to shop at
Hellmart, but they can't afford locally tailor-made clothing or Phil
parts for their custom recumbents.

I sometimes wonder about what people can afford, especially relative
to what my family could afford when I was a kid.

When I was growing up in the '50s, my father had quite a good job by
most standards. Mom was a homemaker. They were products of the
depression and chose to have a large flock of kids. So we had a small
house, especially on a square-feet-per-person basis. He gardened and
tended six apple trees, and she preserved food. Most cars were bought
used. He built the garage, paved the driveway and finished the
basement rec room himself, with family help. Despite his love of
music, we had no stereo, and (of course) just one TV. Household toys
were not extravagant, the most prominent being a ping-pong table
and a
home-built pool table, plus lots of board games to play with the
kids. By today's standards, we kids were deprived.

These days, a person in his professional position would absolutely
own
a home 2.5 times as large, even though there would be just one or two
kids. The cars might be Lexi or BMWs, there would be Wii, three
computers, four cell phones, a TV in each room with the main wide-
screen one hooked into a complete home theater system. But the music
part would be little used because everyone would have an iPod. There
would be more Nintendos than family board games. Kids would be given
cars at age 16. And it goes without saying, Mom would work full time,
because "things are so expensive these days."

Been in a grocery store recently?

In brief, it seems to me most middle class families are into buying
stuff, far more than they used to be. We're enslaved by our
possessions - or by the people who convince us to buy them. I think,
for most people, more modest living could yield a lot more real,
personal prosperity.

_Your Money Or Your Life_ was an interesting book somewhat related to
this subject.

$10/hour is barely enough for rent in most urban areas, if you want to
stay out of the slums.

Yep. I wouldn't call $10/hr middle class. Neither would the Census
Bureau, I think.

- Frank Krygowski

The shouting heads on the tee-vee think $10/hour jobs are
"opportunities". Of course, these shouting heads really deserve to be
re-educated in a labor camp for their sin of pandering for profit to
the rich and powerful.

Without those $8~10 jobs, no one gets that 'first job'. The important
resume-building, character building, self discipline inspiring First
Job. The important one.

My first job with an actual legitimate taxes-withheld paycheck
involved a broom. I moved up to the next position in a couple of weeks
which is a typical course.

Might one support a flock of children, a drug/liquor habit, second car
and cable television on $10/hour? Of course not.


My first was picking cherries.

I suspect picking cherries now would yield $10 per hour, maybe more.
Last I heard it was close to that anyway.

I was able to earn enough during the picking season to afford fuel,
food, books and a few bike and car parts while going through Uni.

Do not know about contemporary OZ, but in the US with current tuition
and housing prices, no way can a person put themselves through school
at a 4-year *public* college/university at $10/hour, nor would they
make that much doing seasonal agricultural work. Maybe in the 1950's
through late 1970's when real wages were much higher, and food,
energy, housing, and educational expenses much less. But that has
been sacrificed so the already-too-rich-to-be-able-to-spend-my-income
group can have even more.

As a licensed engineer with more than 10 years experience making a
wage within one-half standard deviation of the mean, I [1] barely have
the discretionary income to pay for tuition, fees, books and housing
for one (1) undergraduate student at a state university. Sending two
(2) children to a state school at the same time would be out of the
question, without borrowing nearly half the money. As for private
universities - fuggedaboutit.

[1] Example case - I am not actually paying for a student, but the
costs are readily available.

The rise in US post-secondary education costs illustrates graphically
why government subsidy of debt is a horrible idea.

The costs have not risen so much, but the contribution of the Federal
and state governments to higher education have decreased greatly,
putting a greater financial burden on the students. The reduced
spending is the result of anti-tax hysteria in the middle class (despite
the real benefits of tax cuts only going to the rich) promoted by
think-tanks and news outlets funded/owned by the ultra-rich.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 4/14/2011 1:14 PM, A. Muzi wrote:
Chalo wrote:
Jay Beattie wrote:
Chalo wrote:
The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those
people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for
capital, mostly. I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful
business plan carried out, but... first things first. Fairly paying
the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the
profit, comes first.
What is an "inequitable profit"?

That would be a profit reaped by capital without labor having gotten a
living wage. First things first, like I said.


Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a gravy train
why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't everyone? Sit back in
the counting house between tennis sets! Beats working, right?

rhetorical question

Does a Fortune 500 CEO really put in 500 or 1,000 times the effort of
their rank and file workers?

/rhetorical question

sarcasm

Then of course there is the hard work of being given a position due to
nepotism and family connections, and the even harder work of inheriting
vast wealth.

/sarcasm

Unlike the 1950's through late 1970's when USians had the highest upward
social mobility in the world, the US is now regressing and has been
passed by the social democracies of Western and Northern Europe.
Scandinavia, with it much higher taxes is doing far better in quality of
life and upward social mobility than the US since the Ray-Gun Revulsion.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Apr 14, 2:17 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Apr 14, 3:21 pm, Ron Ruff wrote:



On Apr 14, 12:14 pm, AMuzi wrote:

Back to Jay's comments yesterday, if it's so easy and such a
gravy train why don't you run a business? Heck, why doesn't
everyone? Sit back in the counting house between tennis
sets! Beats working, right?

No one said it was easy, but neither are most jobs. The wealth
distribution has really gone crazy in the last 30 years... loads of
people working for $10/hr with no benefits. When I was a kid, anybody
who wanted to work could support a family on one salary!

Of course every employer wants to pay as little as they can. That is
one key ingredient of why a "free" market results in widespread
poverty. The other is that there will always naturally be an excess of
workers with less than outstanding talents... ie they will have no
bargaining power for higher wages. That is why the natural situation
must be counteracted with laws...

There are employers who treat their workers excellently. The owners
of one local manufacturing plant were renowned for fairness and
generosity...

There is a range of attitudes and approaches, and that is commendable,
but still...

The capitalist system incentivates paying the least you can get away
with, and charging the most you can get away with. Any fudging on
this puts you at a competitive disadvantage. As Ron said, moderation
in the form of social conventions (like laws) are needed. There are
already way too many people in existence for us to stand by and watch
the law of the jungle take its course - unless we can do away with
compassion (not recommended).

..., to the point that they not only paid a good wage, they
took their employees on vacations and cruises.

That's cool, but it still sounds like it might sort of play the
aspiring to luxury carrot on-a-stick.

They donated heavily
to the community, and in fact constructed the first rail-trail multi-
user path in the area, about ten miles long. (They did that
completely with private funds, with no government subsidy nor any
pretense that it was "transportational.")


Interesting (needed a tax deduction, maybe?) (Sorry to come off so
cynical :-)

http://business-journal.com/stavich-...-ysu-p9103.htm

Unfortunately, such people seem to be getting more rare.


Have you seen that new TV show, "Secret Millionaire"? A millionaire
goes undercover among poor people, checks out volunteer opportunities
in the community, then gets all benevolent and gives some money (about
what a Jeapordy champion makes in one night) to organizations at the
end, and everybody gets all teary-eyed about it.

I keep waiting to see one of these millionaires (most of whom seem the
type with more to gain from the pubilicity than they give away on the
show)... I keep waiting for one of these ****ers to actually see the
light and give it *all* away at the end of the show (not holding my
breath, but that sure would be cool).

I can't imagine why a CEO (or anyone else) deserves an annual income
in the hundreds of millions of dollars, or why the ratio of CEO salary
to worker salary needs to rise beyond what it was in the '80s.

Hmm. Why don't we have CEOs working via the internet? I'm sure there
are some smart folks in Bangalore who would welcome the outsourced
job. They'd gladly do it for (say) a salary just 10 times that of the
average corporate worker. It's not like the guys doing it now are
more brilliant than ever before.


Power entrenches itself and hoardes opportunity.

On 4/14/2011 2:01 PM, Ron Ruff wrote:
On Apr 13, 10:57 pm, wrote:
The share of business revenues that could be used to pay all those
people a living wage is siphoned off as inequitable profits for
capital, mostly. I don't deny anyone a profit for a successful
business plan carried out, but... first things first. Fairly paying
the people who make the revenue happen, and don't get to take the
profit, comes first.

Chalo

Any free capitalist system will result in most people being quite
poor... subsistence or less. This was discovered quite early at the
beginning of industrialization and capitalism in Europe... and quickly
led to riots, communism, labor unions, socialist reform, etc. That is
why every single developed and prosperous country in the world has
*extensive* wage supports and wealth redistribution via taxes. The
good news is that this results in much greater total wealth if it is
done reasonably well. Production= consumption... and really poor
people make lousy consumers.[...]

Either way the rich have way more money than they can spend. Therefore,
they generally prefer to have a greater share of a smaller pie, as
relative wealth is relative power, and many are gratified by
figuratively stomping on the proletariat.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.