151–160 of 224 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was attempting to paraphrase Adam Smith. "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." Adam Smith That's the context I meant for the word "empower".
Would you agree that among the best things an individual blue collar worker can do with that empowerment is to team up with others in a union?
Union, Yes. The US has weak unions because labor law enforcement is so weak. No administration has done much about that in decades. 11% of US employees belong to a union. 32% in Canada. Read "Confessions of a Union Buster" for background. In theory, whether to organize a union in the US is entirely up to the workers. The employer has no say in the matter. Few people even know that. Employers try hard to maintain that…
Unions are implemented differently in the US and elsewhere. IMHO the case law around unions in the US sets up a perverse incentive structure that results in an antagonistic relationship between capital and labor, ex: Supreme Court ruling requires that unions protect all of their members from firing, even the obviously terrible ones, this has resulted in huge inefficiencies for workers AND capital alike. Other countri…
What is this ruling?
Richard Wolff has also been evangelizing co-ops and worker-owned businesses for some time. http://www.rdwolff.com/faq_worker_coops_wdes https://youtu.be/urCy3UOGgx8
I don't understand why there are not more co-ops in this world. In Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC) is the all-in-one kick-ass outdoor store (like REI). It is a co-op, so you pay $5 for a lifetime membership. The place does not make a profit. All expenses are paid, all employees earn their living. At the end of the year, if they accidentally made a profit, they simply return the extra money to all the members o…
I'd rephrase your question as: under what conditions can coops survive and thrive among regular businesses? After figuring those out, the next question is: how do we get from here to there? I.e. is there any way we can nudge the market, be it bottom-up or top-down, towards that future?
Wage slavery is a real thing in America today. I'm in almost the 95th percentile of income in the US today (although I wasn't always so lucky), and, if I were to somehow lose my job tomorrow, my first priority would be to find a new one ASAP, because I wouldn't be able to pay rent after less than 6 months of unemployment. Most people are not so fortunate. Even the most well-off Americans only have about $164K saved i…
The solution is pretty straightforward. Replace all taxes on labor and earned income with a land value tax. This will increase disposable income of workers by directly decreasing taxes on wages, by lowering the cost of housing by disincentivizng speculative land investment, and by increasing the supply and margin of production of rent-free land, the later of which increases the bargaining power of workers per Ricardo…
Let's say I have low cash flow and bought a reasonably priced house in silicon valley in 1975. Should I basically be forced out of my house in 2010 because a bunch of ultra wealthy companies opened offices a few miles away?
Right now, labor is double taxed. You are taxed in the form of your time and mental energy to perform it, as well as on your return by the government. Accounting for the time tax of labor and putting the combined tax on par with capital taxation would go a long way to correcting this imbalance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution is pretty straightforward. Replace all taxes on labor and earned income with a land value tax. This will increase disposable income of workers by directly decreasing taxes on wages, by lowering the cost of housing by disincentivizng speculative land investment, and by increasing the supply and margin of production of rent-free land, the later of which increases the bargaining power of workers per Ricardo…
Isn't a land value tax punitive to poor people who buy cheap land which then becomes valuable for some reason? Let's say I have low cash flow and bought a reasonably priced house in silicon valley in 1975. Should I basically be forced out of my house in 2010 because a bunch of ultra wealthy companies opened offices a few miles away?
Wage slavery is a real thing in America today. I'm in almost the 95th percentile of income in the US today (although I wasn't always so lucky), and, if I were to somehow lose my job tomorrow, my first priority would be to find a new one ASAP, because I wouldn't be able to pay rent after less than 6 months of unemployment. Most people are not so fortunate. Even the most well-off Americans only have about $164K saved i…
The solution is pretty straightforward. Replace all taxes on labor and earned income with a land value tax. This will increase disposable income of workers by directly decreasing taxes on wages, by lowering the cost of housing by disincentivizng speculative land investment, and by increasing the supply and margin of production of rent-free land, the later of which increases the bargaining power of workers per Ricardo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But they have no clue what real wealth is. I think measuring "real wealth" by some relative metric like "top 1%" is misguided. To me, being wealthy means being able to live a comfortable life without worrying about your next paycheck. I'm from Germany, but studying in China on a scholarship. The 1000 euros per month I get wouldn't put me among the German 1%, but in a country with a lower cost of living, I spend onl…
> To me, being wealthy means being able to live a comfortable life without worrying about your next paycheck Americans generally use middle-class to refer to this state. Things are good, you have a paycheck or two of slack, you can make a healthy retirement contribution and save a little each month, own (via debt) a decent house and car, go out to eat a few times a month, not pinch pennies at the grocery store, etc.…
Richard Wolff has also been evangelizing co-ops and worker-owned businesses for some time. http://www.rdwolff.com/faq_worker_coops_wdes https://youtu.be/urCy3UOGgx8
I don't understand why there are not more co-ops in this world. In Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC) is the all-in-one kick-ass outdoor store (like REI). It is a co-op, so you pay $5 for a lifetime membership. The place does not make a profit. All expenses are paid, all employees earn their living. At the end of the year, if they accidentally made a profit, they simply return the extra money to all the members o…
Looking at their most recent financial statement, it looks like they have $284 million in assets ($164 million being property). They did $365 million in sales with ~$110 million in gross margin. They made $3 million in earnings. So pretty darn healthy, especially with their current aggressive growth. ~3% profit from gross margin is quite reasonable. The company owes ~$190 million to its share holders, but they have no way to redeem it...
I wonder what the executives pull in. "Selling and administrative expenses" are $110 million (which I guess includes all the salaries and executive compensation). So not too shabby.
If you want to live in that world... it might be worth giving it a try.