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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Right Side of the News | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
God I loved that limit, but you might be right. Has anyone done the calculation to make sure that's sufficient to fix the problem? Or maybe the limit only has to be raised instead of eliminated. Why should anyone be exempt privileged? Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
It's isn't as simple as you think. Money paid for operating expenses isn't taxable, but money paid to expand the business is. Corporations can't make profits go away by investing in their business, something I just learned, which means I have to modify some of my response to Theodoric. Profits used to expand the business or purchase other companies are still profits. Companies that diminish their profits by increasing employee compensation may find that they're both diminishing their competitiveness within their industry and foregoing opportunities for expansion of the business. Companies that pay dividends will be discouraged from reducing profits, since dividends are paid out of profits. So pumping money into offshore accounts ...
But what happens to "culture, creativity and wellbeing" when there's insufficient income for food and shelter? It suffers unless there are other transactions (barter)
Put another way, as unemployment drops the competition for employees increases, thereby increasing wages, which increases business costs, which causes them to raise prices, which increases inflation thereby diminishing the value of the increased wages, etc., possibly setting off an inflationary spiral. ... Not so cut and dry, as this is GOP talking point against minimum wages. What happens is that workers have more to spend so demand increases, increasing demand for workers to meet production needs. If late the problem has been overproduction and stalled demand because people were not spending.
And I think I do understand your point. There is a discernible element of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" in your viewpoint. Maybe, I am a Democratic Socialist, but my basic position can be stated simply: First - those who benefit most from the economy that is supported by the government should (happily) pay more in taxes to support that government. Second - all people should get equal care for stochastic events/diseases, etc and nobody should make a profit off the misery of another. Thus insurance and healthcare should be non-profit. Third - basic living needs of all people should be met. The measure of a civilization is not how many millionaires exist, but how few starving children exist. Abe ... & education for all through community college or trade schools. /Abe
I don't think it does. I made lifelong friendships while working that are a meaningful part of my life. I still have at least annual get togethers with people I met at work in 1980. I just now confirmed a lunch with friends from the company I retired from five years ago. Our human side doesn't disappear while working. How many friends are from outside work, and isn’t that a narrow spectrum of people?
I'm racking my brain here for a ne'er-do-well who didn't work, but I can't think of one. I know they exist, I just don't happen to know any. van Gogh
Is capitalism antithetical to cultural values? The purpose of unchecked capitalism is to make few people rich and many people poor. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : Per Jarby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Why should anyone be exempt privileged?
If you're asking why should Social Security deductions should be capped, it's because Social Security benefits are capped. So? The intent was to provide a living income to retired people. Logically that should be available to all, regardless of how much they make. One amount applicable to all retired workers, spouses of retired workers (esp those who never worked in the $$ economy), disabled etc. Wrap all social assistance into one package. For instance Faith says she gets $464/mo iirc. I get over $1000 (less than the maximum due to years worked in Canada). But I also have a comfortable income from investments I have made, so I use the SS to pay off a debt. That doesn’t seem like the intent is fulfilled. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : . Edited by RAZD, : .. Edited by RAZD, : Stupid spell check picking wrong wordsby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Considered adding that, but went for brevity.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
But you can't leave inflation out of the equation. Increased worker salaries mean that businesses must raise prices. But if the change is how profits are distributed within a company, inflation should not be an issue. Curiously I am amused by people so ready to accept a feudal type organization of corporations, when we fought a revolutionary war to get feudal type government out and replaced by a democratic system. The answer, of course, is worker owned cooperatives, where all the workers decide major company policies, like pay and benefits, and they hire and fire managers. Not surprisingly they are successful and have high worker satisfaction. They also seem to be more robust in startups than your standard business model companies. Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia is a huge success story.
van Gogh I meant among people I know. And you don't wonder why there are no "van Gogh" type people in your circle of friends, but think you have a well rounded group. Interesting. I guess you don't know what you don't miss.
Yeah, sure, when I said "capitalism" I really meant "unchecked capitalism." "Capitalism" without any modifiers defaults to unchecked capitalism. Capitalism is amoral, while socialism provides a moral culture. Done democratically it is OF the people FOR the people BY the people. Enjoy Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
But considering just a single company, you suggest taking funds that would have been a company's profits and instead routing them to increased employee compensation. A company unilaterally raising wages within its industry would experience a number of negative consequences, including but not limited to lower competitiveness, increased cost of borrowing, lower dividends (if offered), lower stock price, decreased proceeds from stock offerings, and a diminished ability to expand the business or increase competitiveness. Why? We see companies with substantially higher wages making similar or higher profits > Costco for one example, cooperatives for another. You seem to miss the point. All wages are paid out of gross profits. We currently have businesses with CEO pay 700 times lowest worker wages. The Mondragon cooperatives have a limit of 9 to 1 for highest pay to lowest. They account for substantial portion of the Spanish Economy (~1/3) It's just a matter of how wages are allocated from gross profits.
You're responding to something never said. No claim of "well rounded" was ever made. You said "the $$ economy ignores" that "there is more to life than making money," and I responded that the larger and more important part of our lives outside of work is only made possible by working, that I don't know any families where neither parent worked, that I don't even know anyone who never worked. The point is that working makes possible the richness in our lives that we build outside of work. In personal terms, everyone I know is rich in terms of family and friends, which would not have happened had they not worked and earned money. Now I would say that doing things with other people makes possible the richness in our lives. I have participated in many community orchestras and bands, was a boy scout leader for many years, and other volunteer programs, been part of our towns planning board, etc. and I find friends in all places, several of which I value more than any from work. Our town has an art renaissance zone to promote art and a historic society to preserve local history. To me there is much more to life that work and fellow workers. All these volunteer organizations are part of our social economy but not part of the $$ economy.
What modifier should I use? Checked capitalism? Bridled capitalism? Restrained capitalism? ... One you've used is regulated.
... Anyway, whatever modifier that might be, if you assume it's there every time anyone uses the word unmodified then you'll be right an astounding amount of the time. Except when listening to republicans. Take marc9000 for instance and his claim that a free market will regulate itself better than government regulation.
I don't like the word "socialism" because it's become a loaded term, but if I understand you then we agree, social programs are very important. And yet socialism is highly and increasingly popular in the youth these days. Republicans overplayed their hand in demonizing it. The bugbears have failed to be worse than the GOP. Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
RAZD writes: So? The intent was to provide a living income to retired people. If you mean the original intent back in 1934, no, that wasn't the intent then. If you mean what the intent should be today, I think that's an admirable goal, and I hope it's something we can figure out how to achieve. From what I can find, the SS was intended as a pension for workers and that it would supersede the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI). This has in fact happened as the OASDI is now incorporated into the SS program and is administered by the Social Security Administration.
Social Security (United_States) - Wikipedia A pension is intended to provide a living income on retirement. You didn't say what you thought it was originally intended for.
One amount applicable to all retired workers, spouses of retired workers (esp those who never worked in the $$ economy), disabled etc. There are significant regional differences in cost of living and of healthcare. Agreed. That just means it would need to be regionally adjusted. We should also look into what causes these differences - especially when it comes to places like native reservations.
Wrap all social assistance into one package. If it can be done then that would be great, but personally I don't think this kind of simplicity is possible. So the complication of having several different bureaucracies at several different levels all doing essentially the same thing is preferable? We can go a step further and include taxation, so one bureaucracy handles the give and take. Enjoy Edited by Admin, : Fix link.by our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
RAZD writes: But considering just a single company, you suggest taking funds that would have been a company's profits and instead routing them to increased employee compensation. A company unilaterally raising wages within its industry would experience a number of negative consequences, including but not limited to lower competitiveness, increased cost of borrowing, lower dividends (if offered), lower stock price, decreased proceeds from stock offerings, and a diminished ability to expand the business or increase competitiveness. Why? Because of their reduced profits relative to other companies in their industry. Curiously that fails to (a) follow my argument and (b) explain why you think that means raising prices.
We currently have businesses with CEO pay 700 times lowest worker wages. CEO compensation is a separate issue from unilaterally raising employee compensation within an industry, but I of course agree that executive compensation is out of control. Is this how you get raised prices, by keeping CEO pay as a separate issue? No. It is the same issue: the issue of where the gross profit money goes. It doesn't reduce net profits to cut CEO compensation to a max of 10 times the lowest paid job and redistribute that to the workers.
The Mondragon cooperatives have a limit of 9 to 1 for highest pay to lowest. They account for substantial portion of the Spanish Economy (~1/3) Spain's GDP was $1.3 trillion in 2017. Mondragon's revenues were $6.5 billion in 2018. It's less than 1% of the Spanish economy. My mistake. Miss remembered.
quote: Tenth largest company and the leading business group in the Basque Country. If the Basque areas of France and Spain were a single country it would be the leading corporation and the primary provider of GDP Should we assume GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a valid comparison, when import/export are not included? Spain is near Greece in the EU problem basket, which means GDP alone is not a good measure, imho.
It's just a matter of how wages are allocated from gross profits. Employee compensation is an expense, not a deduction from profits. Think about it. If employee compensation was paid out of profits, then companies with no profits could not compensate their employees. You're confusing gross profits with net profits.
Volunteering is a great way to contribute to the community, but I think most volunteer organizations would be part of the $$ economy. The YMCA has hundreds of thousands of volunteers, but it's definitely part of the $$ economy, as I think most if not all nonprofits would be. And volunteers get significant discounts on member and program fees, so they're compensated for their volunteering. Towns are part of the $$ economy, even if committee work is done by unpaid volunteers. Curiously I would say that the $$ economy is a part of the social economy rather than try to cram these aspects of the social economy into a $$ economy equivalent. The value of a stay-at-home mom is large in the social economy but neglected in the $$ economy. The social economy exists whether it is recognized or not. Social economy - Wikipedia It is poorly recognized in the US, well recognized in the Nordic countries. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : . Edited by RAZD, : ..by our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
The paragraph you questioned didn't mention raising prices, but raising prices would be one way to deal with increased costs such as increasing employee compensation. Reading your responses to Theoderic I see that you saying unilateral raises to employee compensation, and this is not what I have said, only that the lowest paid worker should earn a living wage for 40 hours work per week. To achieve this does not require unilateral raises for everyone, but a modification to the pay scales such that the net cost is the same. It provides a more balanced pay structure, especially when it comes to CEO pay.
This issue is beside the point, but employee compensation is not paid out of gross or net profits. In the view you seem to be advocating, if a company had no gross profits and no net profits but instead had a loss, then they could not compensate their employees because there would have been no profits out of which to pay them. But companies that lose money in a fiscal year do compensate their employees, so the way you're looking at this must be wrong. The way in which you're wrong is that companies do not pay their employees out of profits, neither gross or net. Whatever. You still miss the point.
quote: The lowest wages can be increased without changing the net profit, by decreasing the top level pay/salaries/compensation/etc. Those changes can be prorated for all workers in between. The end result is higher minimum wage with no net increase in cost, no loss in profit. Not everybody gets a raise as you seem to imply. In a standard business model company the pay rates for all people are set by the top management in an authoritarian manner. In a Cooperative Worker Owned venture the pay rates are voted on democratically by all the workers. That is the essence of democratic socialism vs un(der)regulated capitalism.
Curiously I would say that the $$ economy is a part of the social economy rather than try to cram these aspects of the social economy into a $$ economy equivalent. The value of a stay-at-home mom is large in the social economy but neglected in the $$ economy. The social economy exists whether it is recognized or not. Social economy - Wikipedia It is poorly recognized in the US, well recognized in the Nordic countries. The article you cited makes it pretty clear that the social economy is part of the $$ economy. The word profit appears 22 times. Wow. Profit can occur in socialist economies, so that is a non-starter. The social economies also include things not in the $$ economy, such as volunteering and such as arts and entertainment. Sure you can make up $$ values for these, but they rarely represent the time spent perfecting the arts etc. Ask a musician how much he gets paid for gigs and whether they think it is adequate compensation. Ask a painter, a dancer, etc. But that aside, the biggest problem facing people is automation and who benefits. How long before long lines of unemployed people displaced by automation start showing in the employment documentations (we already ignore many people in that "calculation" ... how many more will happen) is not tolerated. They are forgotten by the $$ economy but are part of the Social Economy ... because they are people. How do we as a society provide for them? Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Social Security was originally intended, and still is, as supplemental. ... not a living income. .... quote: The intent was to save lives, improve health and reduce misery. Maybe not a "living wage" as currently defined, but enough to limit deaths. Initially. We might call that a starvation wage (matching your annual numbers) today, but we have grown since then with our awareness of human rights. The biggest challenge ahead is automation reducing jobs dramatically with no replacements. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : .by our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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I'm going to toss this in here to stir your pot a bit:
A little truth behind the scenes. Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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You either quarantine them on the ship or you quarantine them on a military base somewhere in the country. Are you arguing for the latter? A ship is not a hospital nor does it have the capacity to become one -- it is an incubator. A military base does have medical facilities and can erect quarantine structures as needed. Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Under the Trump administration the annual deficit has increased rapidly, unusual in a healthy economy: It's what happens when you throw a lot of money into the system in a way that it boosts the stock market. It's artificial growth. Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
We are essentially bankrupt now, we just keep pretending we aren't. It is not possible for a sovereign nation -- one that prints its own money -- to be bankrupt. Of course this can cause inflation unless balanced by other fed behavior, such as changing interest rates. Sovereign nation legal definition of Sovereign nation Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
All I meant was that we are so enormously in debt it's as good as being bankrupt. Bad choice of wording I guess. See Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Definition
quote: It seems anti-intuitive, but it also seems to accurately explain economic behavior. Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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