To Work or Not?

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Message 1711427 - Posted: 11 Aug 2015, 14:15:01 UTC - in response to Message 1711311.  

Social Security??? Oh, you mean welfare state. You need to use language that will be understood to talk about the issues or all you will do work yourself into a lather.


Actually you need to get with the times Gary .

No, you need to understand American English.
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Message 1711438 - Posted: 11 Aug 2015, 14:41:09 UTC - in response to Message 1711427.  

Social Security??? Oh, you mean welfare state. You need to use language that will be understood to talk about the issues or all you will do work yourself into a lather.


Actually you need to get with the times Gary .

No, you need to understand American English.

American English?
Isn't there 2 of them?
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Message 1711487 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 2:39:17 UTC

Now I've been too busy working to post much in politics the last few weeks, but I have some time off now. I've scanned through this thread to get a general idea of where the conversation is going and I've only seen a few attempts to actually define work.

So are we talking about paid useful work? Paid unnecessary work? Unpaid unnecessary work? Or Unpaid necessary work? What is work?

Does work become work the minute it is recognised with a paycheck? What about the billions of dollars of essential unpaid work that goes on in society every day unpinning the economy and without which nothing else would be possible?

It seems to me that people judge how hard someone works by how much they get paid, which is obvious nonsense. Also, pay really doesn't reflect how important some work is. Which of these is more fundamental to the economy? Highly paid sport stars or unpaid carers?

Is $15 an hour really so terrible when the people at the top get paid such ridiculous salaries that don't actually reflect their worth and what they contribute.

$15 an hour still isn't enough to live on. Why is it wrong to judge people for only wanting to work if they are going to get paid a decent wage for it? Is America really missing its slave class so much?
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Message 1711502 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 3:28:20 UTC - in response to Message 1711487.  

$15 an hour still isn't enough to live on. Why is it wrong to judge people for only wanting to work if they are going to get paid a decent wage for it? Is America really missing its slave class so much?


Yep other wise they can't compete with the Chineese .

Oh wait there is something else they could do other than forcing wages down just to compete with China .

Say what !! DON"T HAVE FREE TRADE DEALS WITH THEM . That's blasphemy !!!! , as the hails come down from the Republican rich hobnobs

Hell even the Donald today says free trade only works if you have intelligent leaders .

Not even the Donald believes in it and is stupid to think there will ever be intelligent leaders that can make it work .

it will only work in Utopia as in order for it to work labor laws and pay rates need to be similar and there currency need to be floated , environmental laws need to be the same , ownership of land laws must be the same and finally tax rates .

If any of these things are not the same or similar then it will not work .

So for the head in the sand lot .

This conversation about minimum wages is WEDGE politics and should be stopped before you all suffer a big drop in your living standards .

Tell you leaders to lead and give up on free trade it's one off the biggest B/S lie's coming from the Academics and economics professors wake up

Proof of this is what China just did devalue it's currency .
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Message 1711511 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 3:56:17 UTC - in response to Message 1711487.  
Last modified: 12 Aug 2015, 4:09:14 UTC

when the people at the top get paid such ridiculous salaries that don't actually reflect their worth and what they contribute.

Fact or your personal opinion? Is there some external influence on the market that distorts the laissez faire system and makes their salaries far higher than elasticity and the demand curve would have them?

It takes a skill set most people don't have to be a CEO and obey the Fiduciary duty to the shareholder. Besides the obvious skill sets of management and business acumen there is a dark side. You can't be a nice guy ever. You have to be bastard 24/7. Every minute you need to be finding redundancy and firing good loyal employees because you don't need them. You need to run the rest ragged and get double the work out of them for half the pay. You have to pretend to be friends with underlings to motivate them, while cussing them out as no good second class losers. You have to ship that defective product you know will hurt people but the legal judgements will cost you less than remaking a warehouse full of it. You must find ways around government ethics/safety regulations to increase your profit. Being a CEO is being a 99.999% legal con man while making sure the other 0.001% of the time you aren't caught. Of course you have to get a good nights sleep while doing this. Are you so sure that skill set is out there in large numbers? I would hope not, as I hope most of our fellow men would never be so morally bankrupt.
<ed>I think I just described Al Capone

That is part of the difference between public and private ownership. In the private case the boss can follow the morals of the owner. In the public case the fiduciary duty to the shareholder to make the most money possible must be followed by law, and that becomes the morality of the company. The morality of legal ethics.

I've scanned through this thread to get a general idea of where the conversation is going and I've only seen a few attempts to actually define work.

So are we talking about paid useful work? Paid unnecessary work? Unpaid unnecessary work? Or Unpaid necessary work? What is work?

Work, in the context of this thread, would be the stuff you do, or have to do, to provide for yourself and provide a measure to the government for your share of the services of government. If that is begging, government dole, private dole, working for the man, self employment, working for government, or some other method really doesn't matter.

As to measurement of it, as we started with $15/hr wage, this implies that you are working for the man and being paid in money or something that is convertible to money (e.g. bitcoin).

Necessary? That is a can of worms. Is Hollywood necessary? Is Hockey necessary? Is Baseball necessary? Is trash collector necessary? Is burglar necessary? If you want to debate those, how about a different thread as there will be as many sets of opinions on the necessity of any set of jobs as there are people on the planet.
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Message 1711604 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 8:05:58 UTC
Last modified: 12 Aug 2015, 8:07:13 UTC

$15 an hour still isn't enough to live on.


I get € 11,00 ($ 12,23) an hour and I have all the luxury I need.
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Message 1711639 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 9:22:04 UTC - in response to Message 1711511.  

Fact or your personal opinion? Is there some external influence on the market that distorts the laissez faire system and makes their salaries far higher than elasticity and the demand curve would have them?

It takes a skill set most people don't have to be a CEO and obey the Fiduciary duty to the shareholder. Besides the obvious skill sets of management and business acumen there is a dark side. You can't be a nice guy ever. You have to be bastard 24/7. Every minute you need to be finding redundancy and firing good loyal employees because you don't need them. You need to run the rest ragged and get double the work out of them for half the pay. You have to pretend to be friends with underlings to motivate them, while cussing them out as no good second class losers. You have to ship that defective product you know will hurt people but the legal judgements will cost you less than remaking a warehouse full of it. You must find ways around government ethics/safety regulations to increase your profit. Being a CEO is being a 99.999% legal con man while making sure the other 0.001% of the time you aren't caught. Of course you have to get a good nights sleep while doing this. Are you so sure that skill set is out there in large numbers? I would hope not, as I hope most of our fellow men would never be so morally bankrupt.
<ed>I think I just described Al Capone

That is part of the difference between public and private ownership. In the private case the boss can follow the morals of the owner. In the public case the fiduciary duty to the shareholder to make the most money possible must be followed by law, and that becomes the morality of the company. The morality of legal ethics.

Yeah see, what you just described is an absolutely worthless businessmen. That guy, you know how he makes profits? By running a company into the ground. He cuts entire deparments, sells of entire divisions and then screws over customers. All it gets him are short term profits. Then, after 5 years he has moved over to the next company to do the same thing, but the previous company is just a shell of what it was. And it starts to make less profits, causing the next managers to cut even more jobs, sell off more divisions and screw over more customers, just so it looks like they are making money. And in a few years, the company is dead. Sold off in its entirety.

What you described is not Al Capone, what you described is Dracula. Corporate vampires that suck companies dry.

Is that someone you want to pay 400 times the rate of what the rest of his company earns? Are those skills that you want to reward?
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Message 1711712 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 13:53:33 UTC - in response to Message 1711639.  

Fact or your personal opinion? Is there some external influence on the market that distorts the laissez faire system and makes their salaries far higher than elasticity and the demand curve would have them?

It takes a skill set most people don't have to be a CEO and obey the Fiduciary duty to the shareholder. Besides the obvious skill sets of management and business acumen there is a dark side. You can't be a nice guy ever. You have to be bastard 24/7. Every minute you need to be finding redundancy and firing good loyal employees because you don't need them. You need to run the rest ragged and get double the work out of them for half the pay. You have to pretend to be friends with underlings to motivate them, while cussing them out as no good second class losers. You have to ship that defective product you know will hurt people but the legal judgements will cost you less than remaking a warehouse full of it. You must find ways around government ethics/safety regulations to increase your profit. Being a CEO is being a 99.999% legal con man while making sure the other 0.001% of the time you aren't caught. Of course you have to get a good nights sleep while doing this. Are you so sure that skill set is out there in large numbers? I would hope not, as I hope most of our fellow men would never be so morally bankrupt.
<ed>I think I just described Al Capone

That is part of the difference between public and private ownership. In the private case the boss can follow the morals of the owner. In the public case the fiduciary duty to the shareholder to make the most money possible must be followed by law, and that becomes the morality of the company. The morality of legal ethics.

Yeah see, what you just described is an absolutely worthless businessmen. That guy, you know how he makes profits? By running a company into the ground. He cuts entire deparments, sells of entire divisions and then screws over customers. All it gets him are short term profits. Then, after 5 years he has moved over to the next company to do the same thing, but the previous company is just a shell of what it was. And it starts to make less profits, causing the next managers to cut even more jobs, sell off more divisions and screw over more customers, just so it looks like they are making money. And in a few years, the company is dead. Sold off in its entirety.

What you described is not Al Capone, what you described is Dracula. Corporate vampires that suck companies dry.

Is that someone you want to pay 400 times the rate of what the rest of his company earns? Are those skills that you want to reward?

Of course it is, because he makes sure that the next quarters earnings go up over the last quarters and that makes the stock price go up. Anything over one quarter away in the financials is useless. Don't you understand wall street?
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Message 1711780 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 16:01:18 UTC - in response to Message 1711604.  

$15 an hour still isn't enough to live on.


I get € 11,00 ($ 12,23) an hour and I have all the luxury I need.

I am surprised, although you can't compare what you an buy Euro for Dollar. I also suspect that being in a socialist country you have good local transit and other things are subsidised that aren't in the US. The standard of living for those on a low income is much higher in Europe than in the US.
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Message 1711787 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 16:06:46 UTC - in response to Message 1711780.  
Last modified: 12 Aug 2015, 16:08:34 UTC

The standard of living for those on a low income is much higher in Europe than in the US.

What? It depends in what country you live in.
Europe is a continent not a country...
Have you ever been to Russia?
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Message 1711863 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 18:39:26 UTC - in response to Message 1711787.  

The standard of living for those on a low income is much higher in Europe than in the US.

What? It depends in what country you live in.
Europe is a continent not a country...
Have you ever been to Russia?

I was thinking more of EU countries. Although Russia under the soviet union used to be better of you were poor than it is now.
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Message 1711875 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 19:01:58 UTC - in response to Message 1711863.  

The standard of living for those on a low income is much higher in Europe than in the US.

What? It depends in what country you live in.
Europe is a continent not a country...
Have you ever been to Russia?

I was thinking more of EU countries. Although Russia under the soviet union used to be better of you were poor than it is now.

Well, Romania is a very poor country and a EU member.
Many romani people emmigrate from Romania to other EU countries, Scandinavia and the UK for instance.
They are now beggers here...
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Message 1711955 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 21:14:41 UTC - in response to Message 1711863.  

I was thinking more of EU countries. Although Russia under the soviet union used to be better of you were poor than it is now.

Average income varies wildly within the EU. But then again, that gets partly compensated with the fact that prices are generally lower there as well.

In any case, wealth and poverty are relative concepts. So the height of income is also a relative concept.
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Message 1711962 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 21:23:55 UTC - in response to Message 1711955.  
Last modified: 12 Aug 2015, 21:24:33 UTC

I was thinking more of EU countries. Although Russia under the soviet union used to be better of you were poor than it is now.

Average income varies wildly within the EU. But then again, that gets partly compensated with the fact that prices are generally lower there as well.

In any case, wealth and poverty are relative concepts. So the height of income is also a relative concept.

Wealth is a relative concept. Poverty is not.
And citizen in the EU have the RIGHT to roam, work and live in other EU countries.
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Message 1711990 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 21:46:49 UTC - in response to Message 1711962.  

Wealth is a relative concept. Poverty is not.

Uhm, no, that makes no sense. If wealth is relative, it automatically follows that poverty is relative as well. To put it this way, a poor person in the Netherlands is probably still wealthier than a poor person in the United States, and is most certainly more wealthy than a poor person in say...South Africa.
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Message 1712006 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 22:13:54 UTC - in response to Message 1711990.  
Last modified: 12 Aug 2015, 22:19:41 UTC

Wealth is a relative concept. Poverty is not.

Uhm, no, that makes no sense. If wealth is relative, it automatically follows that poverty is relative as well. To put it this way, a poor person in the Netherlands is probably still wealthier than a poor person in the United States, and is most certainly more wealthy than a poor person in say...South Africa.

No you are wrong.
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/200-years-that-changed-the-world-bbc/
Updated “Extreme poverty (% people below 1.25$ a day)”. See the data here.
http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=f;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2006$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=t1YAVXUoD3iJKy2mSq2Padw;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=0;dataMax=95$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=
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Message 1712027 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 23:07:09 UTC

There are lies, damn lies and statistics!
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Message 1712041 - Posted: 12 Aug 2015, 23:46:57 UTC - in response to Message 1712027.  

There are lies, damn lies and statistics!

And facts is boring.
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Message 1712077 - Posted: 13 Aug 2015, 1:25:50 UTC - in response to Message 1712027.  

There are lies, damn lies and statistics!


That's ok Gary we all know you live in a dream world so no worry's put you blind fold on and you can put your ear plugs back in .

That way you don't have to see no evil or hear no evil and live in your dream world of fiduciary duty where you don't need to think about the human consequences of there actions .
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Message 1712111 - Posted: 13 Aug 2015, 2:33:39 UTC - in response to Message 1711639.  

Fact or your personal opinion? Is there some external influence on the market that distorts the laissez faire system and makes their salaries far higher than elasticity and the demand curve would have them?

It takes a skill set most people don't have to be a CEO and obey the Fiduciary duty to the shareholder. Besides the obvious skill sets of management and business acumen there is a dark side. You can't be a nice guy ever. You have to be bastard 24/7. Every minute you need to be finding redundancy and firing good loyal employees because you don't need them. You need to run the rest ragged and get double the work out of them for half the pay. You have to pretend to be friends with underlings to motivate them, while cussing them out as no good second class losers. You have to ship that defective product you know will hurt people but the legal judgements will cost you less than remaking a warehouse full of it. You must find ways around government ethics/safety regulations to increase your profit. Being a CEO is being a 99.999% legal con man while making sure the other 0.001% of the time you aren't caught. Of course you have to get a good nights sleep while doing this. Are you so sure that skill set is out there in large numbers? I would hope not, as I hope most of our fellow men would never be so morally bankrupt.
<ed>I think I just described Al Capone

That is part of the difference between public and private ownership. In the private case the boss can follow the morals of the owner. In the public case the fiduciary duty to the shareholder to make the most money possible must be followed by law, and that becomes the morality of the company. The morality of legal ethics.

Yeah see, what you just described is an absolutely worthless businessmen. That guy, you know how he makes profits? By running a company into the ground. He cuts entire deparments, sells of entire divisions and then screws over customers. All it gets him are short term profits. Then, after 5 years he has moved over to the next company to do the same thing, but the previous company is just a shell of what it was. And it starts to make less profits, causing the next managers to cut even more jobs, sell off more divisions and screw over more customers, just so it looks like they are making money. And in a few years, the company is dead. Sold off in its entirety.

What you described is not Al Capone, what you described is Dracula. Corporate vampires that suck companies dry.

Is that someone you want to pay 400 times the rate of what the rest of his company earns? Are those skills that you want to reward?


http://definitions.uslegal.com/b/breach-of-fiduciary-duty/

Gary has spoken about fiduciary duty several times.

When one person does agree to act for another in a fiduciary relationship, the law forbids the fiduciary from acting in any manner adverse or contrary to the interests of the client, or from acting for his own benefit in relation to the subject matter. The client is entitled to the best efforts of the fiduciary on his behalf and the fiduciary must exercise all of the skill, care and diligence at his disposal when acting on behalf of the client. A person acting in a fiduciary capacity is held to a high standard of honesty and full disclosure in regard to the client and must not obtain a personal benefit at the expense of the client.


Also, if I have understood correctly, Gary is not in favor of this law.
Am I correct, Gary?

In any case, what this shows is that it may not be what most of us in the US want rewarded, but that somebody wants it rewarded and so has made it something that is indeed rewarded.
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