Is Corporate Greed Causing Inflation?

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Not all public services are socialist.  Many things, particularly infrastructure, are most efficiently provided as public works.  That's not to say they are necessarily efficiently provided, just more efficiently than other methods.

But that doesn't automatically make them socialist.

In reply to Duke :

I'd argue. That they are. Look at the history of private toll roads in America or private fire departments. 
 

government control made these more efficient and also socialist. 

Point taken. But Some historical context and more to the point of it just being a "scare word" with no real meaning.  Socialism has reached boogie man status  in 1928. 

Truman went on to say, “Socialism is what they called public power … Social Security … bank deposit insurance ... free and independent labor organizations ... anything that helps all the people.” Truman concluded by noting “When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan ‘Down With Socialism’ … what he really means is, ‘Down with Progress.’”

From a 1928 speech by Al smith governor of New York. 
 

“The cry of socialism has been patented by the powerful interests that desire to put a damper on progressive legislation. Is that cry of socialism anything new? Not to a man of my experience. I have heard it raised by reactionary elements and the Republican party … for over a quarter century.”

 

I got to work at 5:20 AM this morning to take a call with a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys (relax, it's a joke, I like everyone).

No doubt I'll be inundated with content this evening about how my stuff needs to be redistributed in the name of fairness by people that probably haven't even rolled out of bed yet.

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

I'm not interested in 100 year old quotes to try to define our current government system. 
 

The understanding of socialism and social programs is vastly different now than it was in 1928.

Truman was a politician. His quote was an effort to defend his social programs from the attacks of his political rivals. It wasn't a definition of socialism. It was a political campaign strategy. 
 

In reply to SV reX :

What's that quote about history and doomed to repeat it.   

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

I didn't say I have no interest in history. I said I'm not interested in 100 year old quotes to try to define our current government system. 
 

(Especially when the quotes are taken out of context)

Context: Truman was in a political race during wartime. He publicly denounced people who made unfounded accusations of Soviet sympathies, but he also purged left-wing federal employees who refused to disavow Communism.  When he left office he had a 22% approval rating (lower than Nixon). 
 

I have no idea how that quote is supposed to help understand what socialism is today.

In reply to SV reX :

You're taking the context wrong. I'm trying to show how it's been a boogie man or pejorative for a long time with little meaning behind it.  When someone calls something socialist today. It usually isn't and is just used to gin up fear. 

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Yes it's been a pejorative for a long time. 
 

The context is that you didn't like that Toyman used it to describe what Gameboy is looking for and suggested Toyman is scaremongering because he used the word, then you used a 100 year old quote (out of context) to try and prove your point.
 

I disagree.  I think it was a reasonably accurate representation of the E36 M3show that has happened here over the last 13 pages.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to Duke :

I'd argue. That they are. Look at the history of private toll roads in America or private fire departments.

government control made these more efficient and also socialist. 

Disagree all you want.  I stipulated that some services were more efficiently provided via the public sector.

But socialism is when you take money from one group of people and give it to another group who have less.  Not when you do things with public money that benefit all the public.

Try being even slightly not-poor and signing up for food stamps, WIC, ACA-subsidized medical insurance, or Medicaid.  Report back how that works for you.  That is socialism.

But Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk can walk into their local library and check out a book.  They can drive across a bridge to get there.  The police and fire department will come to their houses if they call.  These are all publicly-provided services but they are NOT socialist.

[edit]  Social Security IS socialist.  I may or may not ever get back all the money I've paid into it.  I will almost certainly not get all the money I could have had if I had been allowed to keep it and invest it myself.  That lost money is going to pay for people who didn't choose to, or weren't able to, save as much money as I did.  That is precisely why there is so much talk about SS becoming insolvent.

Fueled by Caffeine

Call it what you want. I don't understand people who want the government to treat them like children and take care of them. Sorry you find it scary.

I grew out of that mindset many years ago and that has been reinforced by observing how the government provides the services is does. Public schools, public-owned hospitals, and the piss poor medical provided to veterans come to mind. We apparently have a fundamental difference of opinion on what government is capable of and should be responsible for. 

Back on topic, what are your thoughts on corporate greed. IIRC you are somewhere on the corporate ladder yourself. Is your company a cause of inflation? 

GameboyRMH said:

[...] 7-digits or anything close to it is an utterly ludicrous amount of money to pay for just about anything [...] about $250k~350k/yr, that's reaching the upper bounds of what it can really be worth for a company can pay a human for any work a single human is capable of doing.

Wrong.  $250k-$350k / year is what YOU THINK is the upper bounds of that person's worth.

Duke said:

GameboyRMH said:

[...] 7-digits or anything close to it is an utterly ludicrous amount of money to pay for just about anything [...] about $250k~350k/yr, that's reaching the upper bounds of what it can really be worth for a company can pay a human for any work a single human is capable of doing.

Wrong.  $250k-$350k / year is what YOU THINK is the upper bounds of that person's worth.

 

and now we are to the portion of this stupid rant where we are told what we can make. How.... charitable. 

In reply to Duke :

Unless there are higher non-management non-copyright-based salaries I'm unaware of, it's not just what I think, it's what companies have demonstrated. They won't pay you more unless 1) you can get close to the board, 2) you can initiate an infinite income stream for finite work through IP, or 3) you're one of the word's leading experts on the most hyped-up technology in living memory.

I'm going to need you to point on the doll where the corporate world hurt you. 

GameboyRMH said:

In reply to Duke :

Unless there are higher non-management non-copyright-based salaries I'm unaware of, it's not just what I think, it's what companies have demonstrated. They won't pay you more unless 1) you can get close to the board, 2) you can initiate an infinite income stream for finite work through IP, or 3) you're one of the word's leading experts on the most hyped-up technology in living memory.

But I am talking about higher management.

You have unilaterally decreed that no single person is worth more than $250k-$300k per year to any company (with exceptions for copyright holders or extremely specialized individuals).

I merely pointed out that you think that is the case.  That does not automatically make it the actual case.

bobzilla said:

I'm going to need you to point on the doll where the corporate world hurt you. 

[edit]  Deleted because not constructive

bobzilla said:  and now we are to the portion of this stupid rant where we are told what we can make. How.... charitable. 

Here's a little formula I've developed from years of observation.

Salary of person complaining X 1.5 to 3.0 = Upper limit of what people are possibly worth.

 Salary of person complaining X 3.0<        = Proof that we must go full commie immediately.

GameboyRMH said:

In reply to Duke :

Unless there are higher non-management non-copyright-based salaries I'm unaware of, it's not just what I think, it's what companies have demonstrated. They won't pay you more unless 1) you can get close to the board, 2) you can initiate an infinite income stream for finite work through IP, or 3) you're one of the word's leading experts on the most hyped-up technology in living memory.

Wait a minute...

You're saying I'm missing out on income a company should be paying me for IP I created that is used in their current products? The IP they paid me to develop as part of my job? The IP that I agreed to assign ownership to the company as part of my employment agreement?

So if I understand correctly, you feel that income should effectively plateau between $250k-$350k ? Why is that the magic number? 

What is the incentive to push further, work harder, or take on more responsibility if income is limited? 

Maybe I'm wrong, but 7 figures for a CEO of company making hundreds of billions in revenue seems like it's not unreasonable. You're paying for their knowledge, experience, judgement, network, image, and skills. You can't stick Bob from accounting in the corner office, pay him $200k, and expect the same result as an experienced CEO will produce. 
 

The companies where the CEO berkeleys up are the ones you hear about, there are thousands of companies paying CEOs multiples of what you think they deserve that are going along happily doing business and provide steady income to employees and service/product to customers. 
 

GameboyRMH said:

No Time said:

Sure the guy in the corner office gets paid more than me, but he's also traveling a majority of the time to different corporate offices, attending shareholder meeting, addressing news conferences, and working to create a team that can address the problem areas of the company to increase revenue, sales, and overall value. Those are all thing that keep the  other 91% employed and payed competitively in the market place. That's a lot of responsibility and commitment to a job where you can be the hero one day and a failure the next, and if the market rate is 7 figures to get the best person you can for that job, then that's the value of that person.

Think about that for a minute, paying 7 figures for a manager. If it's a blue-collar company that only does manufacturing, that could be half a lifetime income for the next person down the chain if they're really good at their job, all in one year. Some of those next people down the chain might be happily capable of doing that job for a relatively sane 6-digit wage. 7-digits or anything close to it is an utterly ludicrous amount of money to pay for just about anything, especially if there's no copyright-based income involved. There's a reason that almost nobody working for a company outside of upper management makes more than about $250k~350k/yr, that's reaching the upper bounds of what it can really be worth for a company can pay a human for any work a single human is capable of doing. The only knowledge workers who've broken that barrier are today's top AI scientists, which also shows that if companies really need to compete for workers, they're capable of paying 7-8 digits if needed.

Think of this from the "guy who owns the company" perspective. Are you going to waste a million dollars in salary on some suit when a blue-collar guy can do almost the same job for $200k a year? You'd be insane to throw away money like that.

I suspect that the dude who owns the company isn't insane.

Similarly, if you're the blue-collar guy and you bring $100 worth of productive effort to the business each hour you work, and the boss pays you $25 for each hour, are you getting screwed or fairly paid? If you're convinced that the company is keeping too much of your productive effort in exchange for taking on the capital risk etc, then join up with your coworkers, form a union, and demand a bigger share of what you're bringing to the table. Nobody is going to give you more than you force them to.

GameboyRMH said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Equality of opportunity is pretty meaningless though. Animals in the jungle have equality of opportunity. And if we don't have some similarity of outcome for similar inputs then we have a system that can enable any type or level of injustice and cloak it as a normal function of the system. Why not write off women making less than men for doing the same job as "well, there's no equality of outcome"?

Women don't make less than men for the same job. They make less relative to men because they tend to choose lower paying jobs. If you could pay women less money for the same work being done companies would only hire women.

In reply to Toyman! :

Look man. I don't disagree on several of your points. But we spend more money on healthcare and our social safety net programs per person than any other advanced economy.  With worse results when measured by mortality rates, obesity rates and violence rates. 
 

edit: forgot to answer your question on corporate greed.  I posted my thoughts other places in this thread but I think it's a multifaceted problem. Is there greed out there. Sure.   

my first premise is that we are in gilded age 2.0 and that the new robber barons are the musk's and Carnegie's, Vanderbilt's and Rockefeller of this time. 

 Couple thoughts

1) corporate consolidation is driving competition out of the market place allowing companies to charge higher prices. 
 

2) stock buy backs ahve done nothing for the consumer. They've juiced stock prices for those invested but before companies would invest in their operations before they did this.  

3) anticompetive countries  are dumping products into our marketplace and the worlds. Driving out more competition. 
 

4) for all the tax breaks and subsidies companies get they aren't paying their share.  Eisenhower taxed corporations a whole lot more.  The market couldn't bear the massive price increase everyone said were coming to the consumer so companies  took it out of exec pay.   Didn't hurt our growth in the 50's. 
 

Just a few off the top of my head. But I think resources are getting scarcer due a number of anti competitive actions that have been allowed by the loosening of laws and regulations on companies. 

In reply to Duke :

This topic is very hotly debated by better political minds than us. You subscribe to one and I to other.  
 

Ancient Greece didn't have a police force because they believed it a citizens job to investigate and enforce their own criminal rules.  
 

editied it was Greece not Rome. Long day. 

So, a couple former customers of mine are those 7-figure CEOs you're talking about.

What amount of money would be reasonable compensation for being at the office so much that you don't get to see your kids grow up? Being away from your spouse for months at a time? Working 80 hours a week and having a stress-induced heart attack at 40?

Realize, some of these guys can't shut work off. Not because of their work forcing them to but because their personality won't let them shut it off.

Some of these guys are pretty much the F1 drivers of the business world.

One guy I know tried to retire at 65 and ended up starting two more businesses because he got bored. He's almost 80 and still working. He'll probably die at the office.

I can't work like that but if I found a guy who would nearly kill himself to make my company profitable, you can bet I'd give him a big piece of the pie to keep him around.

Ask yourself how much Steve Jobs was worth to Apple?  The previous CEOs had run the company just about into the ground, they had a market cap of $3B, people were saying that they should just shut the company down and give the money back to the shareholders.  There was a joke that when Microsoft had invested in them, it was an accident because someone had misheard a request to buy "snapple".  Then they acquired NeXT, and Jobs with it.  Over the next decade and a half the stock went up 75x, to a market cap over $200B.  (It's $3T now, but that later growth came after Jobs died)

 That's how much the right CEO can be worth.  And sure, not all of them are Steve Jobs, but don't get the idea that a CEO's job is easy.  There are not many people who have the ability to do that kind of job properly and they are very much in demand.  Low supply and high demand is how you get high wages.