The Right Side of the News

In 1969, my senior high school English teacher told us about it, which is why I read it. He also told us about Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth, which got me reading that anthology and other Mark Twain books (Roughing It was very enjoyable).

I was speaking of entire industries increasing worker salaries, thereby increasing prices which contributes to inflation. I wasn't speaking of single companies.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. You find it curious that you're amused? I'm in favor of any successful way of running a company, of which there is more than one. 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. What modifier should I use? Checked capitalism? Bridled capitalism? Restrained capitalism? 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.But getting to the point, you said, "It's a question of cultural values," and asked if we can't aspire to more than being a "money sucking CEO." Repeating the question, is capitalism antithetical to cultural values? 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.--Percy

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. 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. One you've used is regulated. Except when listening to republicans. Take marc9000 for instance and his claim that a free market will regulate itself better than government regulation. 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.Enjoy

Mississippi Republicans Steal Millions From Welfare Programs | Crooks and Liars

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Six fancy pants people were arrested in Mississippi for scamming what is suspected to be multi millions of dollars from state programs intended to help the poorest among us.

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Two of those arrested were embezzling taxpayers’ money to give it to Republican politicians.

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Dr. Nancy New, owner and Director of the Mississippi Community Education Center (MCEC) and New Learning, Inc. and her son Zach New, Assistant Executive Director of MCEC, were helping Republicans run for the House and the Senate.

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Two others stole money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund to send a third one to a high falutin’ drug rehab center in California. They said he was teaching a drug rehab program for youth in Mississippi while he was actually in California soaking up the sunshine at his own rehab center.

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They took other millions for their personal use and the use of their personal businesses.

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It's OK If You're A Republican.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, for obeying the law and telling the truth.National Security Council attorney Yevgeny Vindman, for being the brother of an enemy of the state (AKA Trump).Ambassador Gordon Sondland, for obeying the law and telling the truth.Absolute fealty to the God-emperor is mandatory! Dissent will not be tolerated! The Constitution and our laws are null and void.

Because of their reduced profits relative to other companies in their industry. Who are you comparing Costco to? What are you comparing cooperatives to? Employee compensation is an expense deducted from revenue. At a gross level of detail, revenue minus expenses equals profits. 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. 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. 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. I agree, and in most jobs you are doing things with other people. Of course. That why's I talked of all the richness of life outside of work. Naturally people value all their friends, whether they met them through work or not. 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.--Percy

More conventional wisdom, that is not wisdom. Conservative economic truths seemingly do not survive when the real world is looked at. Costco was mentioned as classic case. Out here in WI/MN are we have convenience store chain named Kwik Trip. They pay a starting wage $2-4/hour higher than the competition. They offer benefits to even their part time employees. 40% of pre-tax profits go back to employees. The profit sharing bonus averages to about 5-9% of an employee's annual salary.
So how is Kwik Trip doing? They are kicking the competitions ass. Most chains in Duluth-Superior have left. Kwik Trip has motivated happy employees. Customers see that and appreciate that. The chain with the highest employee costs is the most successful.
Jobs at Kwik Trip What term should be used? Instead of coming up with inaccurate words maybe we should actually educate people about what terms like capitalism and socialism mean.

Can I get a BIG AMEN!We have utterly failed in the task of educating citizens in the US and unfortunately one of the biggest causes has been STEM. The goal of education should not be just training workers. When we concentrated on that we threw out the humanities as well as all civic education and yet expect our voters to be able to make reasoned fact based decisions.Ain't gonna happen!Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

What "conservative economic truths" are you referring to? Mention was all that was done, but my position is that there are many ways to organize successful companies. I'm happy for Costco that they're doing so well (I have only your and RAZD's word for that, I haven't looked this up), but just because Costco is doing well doesn't mean that their corporate approach is the only way of being a successful company. Nothing against Kwik Trip, I know nothing about them, but fact checking your claim, if you enter "duluth mn convenience stores" into Google Maps it displays more Holiday Stationstores than Kwik Trips. "Duluth mn kwik trip" shows 9 locations, while "Duluth mn holiday stationstores" shows 17. I don't consider Google Maps authoritative, but that's the only data I have.You and RAZD are making claims that you're not backing up with evidence. Where does your evidence of the success of Kwik Trip, Costco, cooperatives, etc., come from? When RAZD mentioned Mondragon he included one checkable fact, that it was 1/3 of the Spanish economy, and that turned out to be overstated by a factor of nearly 70. It's actually about 1/200 of the Spanish economy, or half a percent. By way of contrast, the biggest company in the US, Walmart, is 2% of American GDP.Again, I have nothing against Kwik Trip, Costco, cooperatives, Mondragon, or any other company. I think it's wonderful that they're successful, but I'd like to have a fact-based rather than unsupported-claim-based discussion. I don't think the term "capitalism" is being misused (correct me if I'm wrong), but "socialism" is. Socialism means state ownership of business and industry. What people like Bernie Sanders mean when they say socialism is actually a shortened form of democratic socialism, but that's not all that different from plain old socialism if you look it up: Democratic socialism - Wikipedia. People are in favor of social programs and a social safety net, not socialism. Trump will slaughter anyone embracing the socialist label in November.--Percy

You would have gotten a BIG AMEN if you hadn't go off into the STEM BS.Our schools are just a start of a basic education. Awareness that things are out there.The real education comes at people every day starting in high school and then forever brought to you by the constant blare of biased media. And they get to pick and choose which media is most entertaining to them since entertainment, not education, is the goal of the 10th grade mentality of the majority of American society.We *could* educate our low mentality populous to higher levels with consistent and accurate explanations but there are too many large, loud, moneyed voices out there with strong political interests in doing the opposite.STEM is NOT the cause of this issue. It holds promise as a major fix with its reliance on critical thinking skills.No, jar. You get a BIG BOO! for that one.

STEM is simply systematic of the belief that the goal of basic education is to make workers.Sorry but STEM is a BIG problem because it is the cover for eliminate teaching people how to think.

Disagree, strongly. You've moved onto a different planet, jar.You can't teach core STEM curriculum without teaching critical and creative thinking skills. Science and mathematics require the mental discipline of critical thinking and technology and engineering require the creative juices that comes from critical thinking.The more scientists we make from our schools the more critical of political and social bullshit this society will become.

That might be true if STEM was actually implemented like you claim but what I see in the so called STEM schools is hardly producing critical thinkers.

That investing in human capital; wages and benefits; is detrimental to the competitiveness and success of a company. You, yourself, have made such a claim. But they are a prime example that high wages and benefits does not make a company uncompetitive. Sure companies can be successful with low wages and crappy benefits; Walmart. But no one made that claim. You are throwing out a strawman. Walmart's success is on the shoulder of public benefits programs those on the right excoriate.

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High wages and high productivityCostco pays its employees unusually well for a retailer. While the company's starting pay is $11.50 per hour, not much better than many other retailers, the average employee wage is around $20 per hour. The national average wage for a retail sales worker is just $11.39. In addition to high wages, the vast majority of Costco employees also get company-sponsored healthcare.

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Costco can afford to pay such high wages because its employees are extremely productive.

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3 Reasons Costco Is a Great CompanyThey attract the best, so get above average productivity. And Costco employees are not dependent on public assistance. This where a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. First of all Holiday Stores have been in the Duluth area for over 25 years. Kwik Trip first entered the market in 2015. Second of all, in order to get a feel for the number of stores you can not just search Duluth. The area around here is known as the Twin Ports. It includes Duluth, Superior, WI and surrounding cities and towns. By pulling up the websites for these companies I can get an accurate count of stores in the area. As Kwik Trip was not even in this area before 2015, I am going to include the area that encompasses their expansion post 2015. Holiday Stationstores has 20 locations, Kwik Trip has 21. All of Kwik Trips were built post 2015. The newest Holiday Store is at least 15 years old. But this is all another strawman. I never said they were the only chain in the area or that no one else is successful. Your claim is that higher wages and better benefits makes a company uncompetitve, This is patently not true.
Find your nearest Kwik Trip location - Kwik Trip | Kwik Star
https://www.holidaystationstores.com/Locations/Search Are you claiming they are not successful? Do I Have to post articles showing their growth? Here is one.
Here’s Where Costco Is Opening in 2019
Would an unsuccessful company be making $2.5 billion in capital improvements in next 5 years
https://madison.com/...9abd-8d5e-59e3-874a-901d2e15f863.htmlWhat more evidence do you want to show that Costco and Kwik Trip are successful companies? In fact using Wiki as you did, this is not correct.

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Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership[1][2][3] of the means of production[4][5][6][7] and workers' self-management of enterprise,[8][9] as well as the political theories and movements associated with such systems.[10] Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.[11] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[12] with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms.[1][13][14]

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Socialism - Wikipedia

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However, state ownership and nationalization by themselves are not socialist, as they can exist under a wide variety of different political and economic systems for a variety of different reasons.

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State ownership - WikipediaWhat you have defined is state socialism.

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State socialism is a classification for any socialist political and economic perspective advocating state ownership of the means of production, either as a temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism or as characteristic of socialism itself.[1]
State socialism is often used interchangeably with state capitalism in reference to the economic systems of Marxist—Leninist states such as the Soviet Union to highlight the role of state planning in these economies, with the critics of said system referring to it more commonly as state capitalism.[2] Democratic and libertarian socialists claim that these states had only a limited number of socialist characteristics.[3][4][5] However, Marxist—Leninists maintain that workers in the Soviet Union and other Marxist—Leninist states had genuine control over the means of production through institutions such as trade unions.[6]

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State socialism - Wikipedia But no one is embracing that label are they? You seem to want to pin it on them, but no one is embracing it.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

It is really just a cop out. A sop to your feelings.

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There’s no way around it: Fiscal conservatism decreases federal funding, and therefore diverts money away from social programs that protect the medical, educational, and social rights of millions of American citizens. So why do so many people still cling to this ideology? Maybe it’s due to a misunderstanding of the ways in which poverty operates. Perhaps it’s a feature of being raised in a financially sheltered and socially stable environment. It might, like so many other truths we hold, just be a logical disconnect.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter why many people have tolerated the financially conservative but socially liberal narrative for so long. What matters is the willingness to accept the fact that an ideology we might consider right or comfortable can cause tangible hurt. Instead of running from this discomfort, though, we should acknowledge it as a growing pain a marker of conversation that can make us wiser, kinder, and more aware...

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We must realize that when we say, I’m fiscally conservative but socially liberal, what we’re really saying is, I care about poor people and POC, but not enough to confront how my ideology marginalizes them.
What we’re really saying is, I only want to seem like I care.And that hurts to hear. So instead of continuing to defend the financially conservative but socially liberal narrative with roundabout rhetoric and defensive But I care! interjections, let’s simply digest the fact and put our money where our mouths are. Let’s fight for justice using all of our resources and privileges, financial ones included. Because it’s logical, because it’s what will increase the life chances of individuals in marginalized communities, because it’s what must be done.

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Newsflash: You Can’t Be Financially Conservative And Socially Liberal – FEM Newsmagazine