Enforce a Maximum Wage!

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: ScepticScot

I don't disagree. But the answer is not class warfare. The answer is to stop electing people who put policies in place that off shore the jobs that helped close the gap in income inequality.

No one in Detriot was complaining when they made $25/hr. When the middle class started to die, the knee jerk reaction was to blame the top earners. Instead of the policy makers that put the middle class on life support.

Oh but what policies do we vote in. The left supports radical unions that drive costs and benefits to the point that a public company beholden to stock holders must look for a different solution or the right that supports tax breaks and growth incentives for companies moving overseas. What a conundrum.

If the company is self sufficient and not relying in any way on tax dollars I don't really think the gov't should have any say how much any group of it's employees. But that means:
1. Tax incentives, tax breaks, loans ect.
2. Gov't purchases for way overpriced items.
3. And here's the sticker- welfare benefits handed out to their employees.

But as long as my tax money isn't being used to build the next NFL stadium and ALL it's employees are earning a living wage and the gov't isn't handing out overpriced tickets to the games I don't really care about how much the football players or their coaches or whatever is making. The same would go for the CEO of McDonalds really. I just have this thing about subsidizing these companies with our tax money through all the various avenues that have been set up just so a select few in the company can make enough money to feed and house the homeless of my area probably for the entire year!

So I disagree with the idea of a maximum wage but I fully support tighter strings on the money that is handed out. And this way you are not communist but rather more in line with the "free market" that doesn't really exist but everyone loves to pretend does.

originally posted by: Eunuchorn
A single CEO forgoing exorbitant pay for the benefit of his employees? No.
Every CEO, CFO, COO, & board member / anyone making over X amount forgoing their exorbitant pay for the benefit of their employees? Absolutely.

You see… you also have a dire misunderstanding of economics and how things work.


Going back to that example of the Ford CEO getting big-fat $100 million bonus. That bonus would have been something the board, and likely also stockholders, agreed to as reward for doing something important -- like making profits… big profits…. the kind of profits that ensure employees still work, the company still moves forward, the company makes capital investments, and the stockholders gain value.

It's not money for nothing.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

All money is for nothing. This is the true discrepancy in our ideological stances.

a reply to: Flatfish

Hm. Well what if a company isn't doing very well and the CEO isn't making a lot of money? Who would want to work for a company where the lowest paid job is getting $5/hr when someone next door is getting $8/hr?

This would cause a downward spiral in companies that are already struggling. People would jump ship before the company collapsed. The more people that do, the faster the company fails.

originally posted by: Eunuchorn
All money is for nothing. This is the true discrepancy in our ideological stances.

If money is for nothing, please explain how you plan to barter for food? Are you sure you have something the all the other parties will want?

Trade mediums (money) play a vital role in the operation of any economy larger than a small village.

There is a reason basic bartering has been gone for 5,000+ years.

wages should be capped for the same reason that ownership of weapons is capped. We do not allow citizens to own tanks, automatic assault rifles, missiles, or private armies. Why? Because obviously, it would be detrimental to their neighbors, or anyone who disagreed with them. Similarly, massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few greatly destabilizes democracy, allowing bribery, monopolization, and manipulation of markets. Sorry, you cant buy a nuclear bomb, you also should not be able to accumulate the financial equivalent. Money IS power, and allowing a small group of people to accumulate as much wealth as we have has given all the power in our country over to the select few. Enjoy your increasingly de-regulated free market capitalism, folks. It is what it is.....rule by money.

a reply to: pexx421

That....i don't know what to say....

...invoke 1 tyranny to justify another?

originally posted by: pexx421
wages should be capped for the same reason that ownership of weapons is capped. We do not allow citizens to own tanks, automatic assault rifles, missiles, or private armies. Why? Because obviously, it would be detrimental to their neighbors, or anyone who disagreed with them. Similarly, massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few greatly destabilizes democracy, allowing bribery, monopolization, and manipulation of markets. Sorry, you cant buy a nuclear bomb, you also should not be able to accumulate the financial equivalent. Money IS power, and allowing a small group of people to accumulate as much wealth as we have has given all the power in our country over to the select few. Enjoy your increasingly de-regulated free market capitalism, folks. It is what it is.....rule by money.

You are in America aren't you? Actually, take the private army piece aside (although to suggest private, paid enforcers don't exist is naive) and I'm led to believe you can buy such things, it just makes you a weirdo - cue the flames.

cap wages? Ok, in what country? The USA? Then China will pay you more for your services. Should one company make a stand and cap wages? Great, a competitor will hire your CEO.

Sorry, not pretending I have answers, but if it's a private company, as long as their salary policy breaks no laws, they can pay what they want to who they want.

Jesse of course will rejoin the thread and tell us how he is capping his own income to $75 an hour after taxes any time now.......................... won't he?

a reply to: Mirthful Me
Ahhh so you don't actually have a point. If only you had said that the first place you could have saved us both some time.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Mirthful Me
Ahhh so you don't actually have a point. If only you had said that the first place you could have saved us both some time.

Thanks for reiterating my point...

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
The problem isn't with an individual company board making a decision to pay it's CEO a bonus. It is with a system that makes a board believe it has to pay one person a sum greater the rest of its workforce could ever hope to earn in a life time.
Of course good senior staff should be well rewarded, however level of income inequality is not just morally wrong but economically damaging.
Just to add don't support a maximum wage (a slightly ridiculous idea) . Changes to make tax fairer and more progressive along with changes to the corporate structure to promote greater economic and social responsibility.

a reply to: pexx421

Money IS power, and allowing a small group of people to accumulate as much wealth as we have has given all the power in our country over to the select few.

Do you truly believe that? If what you just said is true then we can't really do anything about it now, can we.

a reply to: Mirthful Me
If you want to get really pedantic I could point out your misuse of 'reiterating', however I would prefer to remain on topic.
Do you actually have a point about the topic?

our system is supposed to have checks and balances to make sure everyone is represented. It doesn't, but its supposed to. I don't think many people living in the "golden era" of the us, in the 50's through the 70's felt they were living in a "tyranny" when the wealthy were taxed 90% of their income.....and business was booming. And no, you are not able to own functional tanks, warplanes, missiles, etc. People don't, I think, see it for what it really is. Congress is completely controlled by money now, and only represents a small minority of the nations populations interest...those who pay to fund campaigns, or bribe. Money is not just a thing that you can just own as much of as you want without imbalancing the system. This is how the rockefellers and JP morgan were able to crash the whole market (several times) in order to buy up all their would be competition at rock bottom prices after their fabricated bank runs which they caused through market manipulation during the 20's and later......and most likely our latest crash of 08 as well. I think its likely that most of our "crashes" are actually planned for and instigated property and business grabs, brought about because these groups were allowed to accumulate so much wealth that they could independently game the system. We have laws about monopolies (ineffective ones), I don't really see how this would be any different. The whole premise is the same. Exactly the same. Monopolies are not allowed because they amass so much power that the monopoly can exploit the people. Massive money accumulation works the same way.

To be clear here, I am not talking about earning hundreds of thousands or millions. More along the lines of billions. Its a simple matter of what is destructive to society, and what gives a person or small group the power to exploit the masses. Yes, in our "democracy" the people, our society, should be protected from a small group of people accumulating so much money that they can override the freedoms of the rest. We should have protection from the rich dragging us into war in order to get richer, from pharmaceutical companies writing their own legislation to ensure we pay the highest prices of any other nation for their "medicine", from oil companies interfering with innovation in alternative energy technologies, from Big agriculture colluding to keep small farmers from becoming competition, from health insurance companies legislating that everyone is mandated to buy their shoddy and often fraudulent product.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Mirthful Me
If you want to get really pedantic I could point out your misuse of 'reiterating', however I would prefer to remain on topic.
Do you actually have a point about the topic?

I didn't misuse "reiterating"...

a reply to: Mirthful Me
You are also misusing missive, if you don't understand a word best not to use it. It really doesn't make you sound more intelligent.
I am posting from a phone so sorry if a missing letter or comma makes my points too hard for you to follow.
Now once more do you actually have an on topic point?

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Mirthful Me
You are also misusing missive, if you don't understand a word best not to use it. It really doesn't make you sound more intelligent.
I am posting from a phone so sorry if a missing letter or comma makes my points too hard for you to follow.
Now once more do you actually have an on topic point?

Oh, the irony...

Your screeds (I know exactly what a screed is, you should look it up so you do as well, then refer to the above sentence) are missing entire words, sometimes more than one in a [sic] complete sentence, blaming your phone is just plain sad.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
The problem isn't with an individual company board making a decision to pay it's CEO a bonus. It is with a system that makes a board believe it has to pay one person a sum greater the rest of its workforce could ever hope to earn in a life time.

The reason that happens, has been previously discussed on the first page of this thread.

however level of income inequality is not just morally wrong but economically damaging.

There's no proof for that. But there is plenty of proof for the real cause of wealth inequality (on page three of this thread).

Changes to make tax fairer and more progressive along with changes to the corporate structure to promote greater economic and social responsibility.

You'll never be able to legislate economic and social responsibility. So set that aside.

And there need be few, if any significant changes to tax law for corporations and high-net-worth individuals other than closing the loopholes for shifting money offshore.