Thread: Occupy cprogamming.com!

Originally Posted by jwenting

It is actually far worse than that. The cost of employing that person is far higher than the wage he is taking home.
The company has to pay social security premiums, liability insurance, has to maintain his workstation and support staff for the function, etc. etc.
That 7.25 must often be doubled (or worse) to get the real cost of employing that person.

Here is a solution: don't pay them at all, just get rid of the bums.

If, as you say, these are not really the people who provide for the economy, who cares? Why should employers -- the people you claim really provide for the economy -- support all these good for nothing workers? They are not needed. You only have to pay someone 7.25 + other expenses if they are actually working for you. But if it is actually you that produces most of the value in your "business", then why do you need all those lazy, worthless employees?

A business truly worthy of our admiration does not need workers. All it needs are entrepreneurs and management. Which reminds me of something:

from: Why the Massive Wealth of the 1% Could Ruin the Economy - Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee - Business - The Atlantic

This phenomenon is summarized in a classic though possibly apocryphal story: Ford CEO Henry Ford II and United Automobile Workers president Walter Reuther are jointly touring a modern auto plant. Ford jokingly jabs at Reuther: "Walter, how are you going to get these robots to pay UAW dues?" Not missing a beat, Reuther responds: "Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?"

Originally Posted by Elkvis

I don't think anyone is trying to say that workers don't provide value to a business, or that by virtue of being an employee they are lazy or worthless. you're just editorializing now. but if they work that needs to be done doesn't provide enough business revenue to cover the cost of the employee, there's no reason to have that employee.

I totally agree!

Wanting to be an entrepreneur is like wanting to be a rock star. When you (figurative you, I am not trying to be spiteful, nb) fail, it is not because:

1) You know nothing about music.
2) You cannot sing.
3) You are ridiculous and pretentious.

It is probably because the sound man got it wrong, or the crew didn't try hard enough, or your publicist is a loser. Right?

businesses don't exist to provide jobs and benefits. they exist to make money.

I think businesses exist because the people who own them want them to exist. Why exactly they want that is their question to answer, but certainly, to make money (for the owners) is bound to be a universal reason. That it is the only reason, and that it excludes the reason of "providing jobs and benefits" to others, I don't believe.

My parents (first my father, now my mother) have been running a small manufacturing business successfully for almost 40 years. They've provided a decent living to about a dozen people, some of them for decades, and throughout all the various recessions in that period. I have been involved with this from time to time in various capacities, and am mostly privy to its "secrets", so that is where I am coming from.

The family are also into investment, so I'm aware that there are a lot of people out there who seem to believe that because they wear an "entrepreneur" hat, they are somehow entitled to success. When they fail, they are eager to blame everyone else: "I'm not losing money because of my own incompetence! I'm losing money because my payroll is too big!" Who's fault is that? Why and and in what way is it too big? Best of all, who should I whine to and lobby in government to help "fix" my problems? I think our current climate babies the managerial class too much and encourages them to come up with easy, cliched answers, when the problem is mostly with their spoiled incompetence. When things are good, this discrepancy is much less significant than when things are not good.

Hell hath no fury like a spoiled incompetent faced with his/her own consequences.

IMO, what business failures mostly come down to is: the employees were unproductive not because:

there are a lot of lazy worthless people in this country

but because there are a lot of entrepreneur wannbes who cannot manage their own business properly. Their ideas are ill-conceived, they cannot organize other people effectively, they do not inspire confidence, and they get way way ahead of themselves. That would be fine, except thru whatever means (eg, by leveraging their over-valued homes), they come into enough capital to make their disaster a reality.

I've seen that first hand on a small scale, but AFAICT, the same logic applies all the way up:

- some group of people succeed on some level, in some way, for some period of time, and they then believe they have a permanent Midas touch. Thus, when things go wrong subsequently, it must be the fault of labour!
- some group of people just mentioned are so sure of themselves, they get way way in over their heads WRT to financing, and they must take the cost of this financing out of somewhere if it didn't actually produce the revenues they were expecting. Nb, that stock pricing is a variation on this theme.

everyone's attitude needs to change, not just the "1%"

The point I'm making is, if this "1%" are conceived of as the movers and shakers, it is more important for them to change their attitude than anyone else. If you have a successful business model and can inspire others, awesome. However, if your business model is: pay whoever the absolute least amount I can because I either cannot make money with my product or I have squandered the money that I made, then YOU DESERVE TO FAIL.

That's the essence of capitalism.* Not busting unions or screaming like spoilt children because your rock star dreams are threatened by...reality.

* or at least, the kind of benevolent capitalism which does good by society. I know there are variations that regard societies as expendable...IMO, these are actually politically motivated; the teleology of such philosophies is a radical upheaval, much like the teleology of totalitarian communism (concentrating power in the hands of a tyrannical few, because those few supposedly know best "what is good for everyone else"...most likely they are just sadists).