Ridgid Clearance Prices at the Borg

[Abe]

If there's a point here, it's well hidden.

Or: do something else for a living. How hard is this to figure out? Society doesn't owe people a living doing whatever they feel comfortable doing.

Your tone suggests you think CEOs enjoy sinecures and spend all their time loafing at the golf course while the peons work themselves to death. That's delusional. Most CEOs started out as peons and worked their way up by putting in 100 hour weeks. If they produce, they get richly rewarded -- and they're worth it. If not, they eventually get canned. Stockholders want to make money, and that's the ONLY reason they are stockholders. Why would they continue to pay a CEO who builds up a record of failure? They aren't interested in employing anybody, CEO or Clerk, Third Class, who doesn't make money for them.

cheers, abe

[Charlie Self]

Abe responds with this:

Uh, go for this: pay someone more; he works harder and better; productivity goes up; more good can be sold; profits go up. Is that clear enough?

Jeez, you coulda fooled me. I only worked 65 to 80 hour weeks when I first started in business. I really don't know shit about business. Only had my own since '70.

You tell me why stockholders continue to pay CEOs who don't perform. There are literally dozens of examples annually. What theya re "interested in" and what actually happens are 2 different things.

Charlie Self

"Old age is fifteen years older than I am." Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Abe]

It's off-target. Stockholders want to maximize their own profits, not employee pay. Paying production employees more may be perceived not to yield enough additional revenue from "harder and better work" by the employees to be worth the expense.

...

How would I know? Because the board and stockholders are more interested in long-term growth than what happens this quarter? Because good performance means something different in some years than others? Because the CEO is a silver-tongued devil and has persuaded the board that the dog ate his homework? Name a specific case or use your own imagination.

I'm sure there are, as you say, "dozens of examples" each year, but it's absurd to claim this is the norm. How many corporations do you think exist in the U.S.? Are you really asserting that it's generally true that companies employ and compensate executives without considering performance of said executives?

I suspect you're seeing a weird, distorted version of reality because you've got some inner need to demonize businesspeople.

Cheers, Abe

[Charlie Self]

Abe responds:

Well, as a businessman, I kind of wonder about that. I guess I do demonize myself.

But only on Halloween.

Charlie Self

"Old age is fifteen years older than I am." Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Brian Henderson]

Whatever the market will bear. Do I think many workers should be satisfied with $15 an hour, the answer is absolutely. That's around

30k per year which is within the median standard of living in many areas. Of course, you adjust that for local conditions.

The problem is when you have union dock workers making $120k a year complaining that they're not making enough.

[Brian Henderson]

They do it every year in their annual stock report. Heck, most companies need to post quarterly earnings reports. It isn't like these numbers are secret, they're out there for anyone, employees included, to see. Many large companies even post monthly earning repotrs.

Not difficult at all.

[CW]

[Brian Henderson]

You can't live on $15 a day in the US. You might be able to elsewhere. No one is asking anyone to accept $15 a day in the US though, so it's a moot point.

[CW]

Sure they are. They keep saying that we have to be competitive to keep manufacturing in this country. Competing against the Chinese? $15.00 a day.

wrote: > No one is asking anyone to accept $15 a day in the US

[Brian Henderson]

There are many additional costs to doing business overseas beyond what you pay the workers so it all balances out in the end. The US-based company can probably afford to pay their workers $15/hr for the same cost as they could at $15/day in China. Sure, you can make a car cheaply in China, but you're not going to find an American buyer for a car that's in China, you have to ship it. That raises the costs dramatically.

If the American worker is satisfied with $15/hr, the chances of the company going offshore are much less than if they start demanding $20 or more per hour and the workers need to understand that.

[Robert]

So you don't work for a union, yet you get the same benefits as a union worker, eh? Unions WERE beneficial YEARS ago. Since then, LAWS have been enacted to provide the protection once offered by unions. So what do unions offer now? Follow the links I've posted previously. Unions are a big part of work being sent overseas. Bully a manufacturer, charge an unreasonable amount, and they'll take their business elsewhere. Tell me you'd do otherwise as a manufacturer when you see your profits dropping each time the union whines.

I work with several different contractors on a daily basis. Many are union. They spent their days whining, avoiding work, getting paid too much, and generally ripping off the company that pays them. I'm not saying ALL unions are like this, just MOST of the ones "I've" ever worked with in my past 20 years in the aerospace industry. UPS is union too, but their delivery guys bust tail all day. Our shipping department obviously has a better union rep as they do a fraction of the work in a week that a UPS guy does in an hour (and they still bitch). Oh, our plumbers are also union. We usually pass them in the 50mph zone.. they're easy to spot... they're going 20mph and taking all the back roads for hours.

Yes, if it wasn't for the ACLU, we'd still be worrying about the Spanish Inquisition. Sheesh!

[Silvan]

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

[Abe]

Our chief weapon is fear. Fear and surprise. Surprise and fear. Our TWO chief weapons are...

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 16:14:59 GMT, Abe pixelated:

Thank you, Cardinal Ximinez.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- The more we gripe, *

longer God makes us live. * Graphic Design - Humorous T-shirts

[Tim Douglass]

It does if you're a logger.

Tim Douglass

[Norm Abram]

Or an orchard owner.