This seems like the equivalent of a man walking up to a homeless person, kneeling and handing the man $5 while his wife takes a picture of the action... Oh! You have an ounce of humanity left in your slowly freezing heart, you want a cookie jackass? Had the top 5% cut their salaries in half and disbursed it equally to the bottom 5% then I might have been impressed but anything short of that and you aren't going to get me to bat an eye.
I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
191–200 of 325 posts
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you're getting a $365k bonus you are likely already so rich that the money is only going for luxury things while for someone making $7.25 it's quite literally the difference between living in a car or not. I wonder if you could apply this to the rest of American society...
> you are likely already so rich that the money is only going for luxury things while for someone making $7.25 it's quite literally the difference between living in a car or not This is a great insight which unfortunately doesn't get much attention in the inequality debate. I'm now rich enough to be in the top 0.5% of the world. The marginal utility/value of money is so low for me that I've begun valuing my time and…
I may eat some downvotes for this but I really need to say it. It's a bit off-topic, too.
Please, do not start believing you will be making a difference through charity.
I observed rich people in the past that out of some half-conscious guilt started thinking they need to give back in some way. But they don't want to be inconvenienced by doing it personally or by evaluating which people deserve a donation or have an important material problem solved, by themselves. They prefer to unload their guilt -- or the need to feel good about themselves -- through a 3rd party. Basically, buying goodwill and good conscience with money.
That's not giving back.
I have known several rich people and they go through a very similar process. It's very saddening to observe.
If you want to make a difference with money -- go out there. Physically! Meet people with less. Talk to them. Ask them what is the hardest thing in their lives at the moment. Ask them what's a regular concern for them. Do that 100 times, or 500 times. Understand their struggle. Many would just squander the money in a week, even if you gave them a bag of it. Try and aim your efforts and money where it will truly count.
It's not an easy thing to do. But it's a worthy cause to pursue, much more worthy that a random charity.
Apologies for off-topic.
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your business is only viable when paying people below what they need to live, then your business shouldn't exist. The fact that you can do that now is simply people in power exploiting the weak. Effectively what is happening is that those without power are subsidising the business by supplying them labour below cost. Generally in economics, making a business only viable through subsidies is a bad thing. It is much…
> Effectively what is happening is that those without power are subsidising the business by supplying them labour below cost. How do you define "cost"?
The 'cost' of labour is the income required for such labor to maintain itself.
I.e. living costs + healthcare costs + groceries & other expenses + a little saving.
This is the base cost of a person, and thus the base cost of labour.
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#194This is insane -- paying a $7.25/hr minimum wage to people you call "teammates" and expecting them to stick around is preposterous. In anything but a terrible economic downturn, minimum wage says to employees that you just want a body doing a job right at this moment, but aren't willing to invest any further in them. Why would anyone stick around, or care to do more than the most basic job requirements? These jobs ar…
He took action and doubled the pay to 15/hr, then it further increased to 16.50/hr. I didn't think he was stumbling on a new lesson, your reading was a bit more cynical than mine. Simply put, he hadn't realized the plight of those on 7.25/hr until he heard what his employees were going through. How else can we improve things if we don't allow people to change their views? Mocking a CEO for changing his view is the op…
Agreed. It's funny seeing replies here. Making people feel bad about themselves doesn't get very far in influencing their viewpoints. A lot of smart people disagree with higher minimum wage. You won't reach them by saying stuff like "it just takes a basic high school diploma..." "you're out of touch..." But you will get padded-on-the-back by others holding your beliefs.
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#195This is insane -- paying a $7.25/hr minimum wage to people you call "teammates" and expecting them to stick around is preposterous. In anything but a terrible economic downturn, minimum wage says to employees that you just want a body doing a job right at this moment, but aren't willing to invest any further in them. Why would anyone stick around, or care to do more than the most basic job requirements? These jobs ar…
I'm afraid many people are just terrible at empathy, and imagining how it is to live a life very different from their own. As they say, the greatest privilege of them all is the ignorance of how privileged you are.
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was watching a sitcom called Superstore a little while ago, features the employees in a Wal-Mart like store, and the protagonist got a promotion to the head of the store. There was a whole plot line about how her wage was now in the 6 figures, and I was incredulous until I did a bit of research - Wal-Mart store managers can absolutely make that much money while their employees live in poverty. How you could make th…
Economics is amoral. It doesn't know good from evil. The biggest mistake on the right is thinking that capitalism is Good. The biggest mistake on the left is thinking that capitalism is Evil. It just is . It's like thermodynamics. If you get burned by a hot stove, it doesn't mean physics is evil. And it doesn't mean getting burned is just your imagination, either. Without intelligence guiding them, such systems can e…
> Economics is amoral
Such a thing does not exist. It is the study of exchange between individuals, any model that brings down morality to 0 will not be useful, practical or a applicable.
There is a reason why the most iconic political economists were all philosophers!
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#197I wish redistribution to the very bottom was a bigger part of the political debate. Our politics is currently focused on redistribution from the very top to the middle class. (Stuff like free college or universal healthcare would primarily benefit the top half, because those folks are the ones who are in a position to be accepted to and attend college, and aren’t already covered by Medicaid.) The math of that is toug…
It's also crazy to me that the whole framing is around providing money for investment when any stimulus to the end consumer is going to inevitably end up at the top (it's not like money flows many other directions in the long run in our current system).
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#198I was thinking the math didn't work out, but it does. If you ignore taxes and say a raise of +7.50 an hour for a working week comes to around $14500 extra a year, over 500 employees that's about $7.3m. If that were split into 20 executive bonuses, that'd be $365K each.
If you ignore taxes and say a raise of +7.50 an hour for a working week comes to around $14500 extra a year
For budgeting, you take the hourly x 2080, so $15,600 before taxes. I've filled out one too many government SF-424 forms back in the day.
I was told, when I was a contractor, to use 1920 x bill rate, so I had a realistic idea of the yearly with 4 weeks off.
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Supposes employer A chooses to pay their employees more than other employers. Employer B chooses to pay their employees less. Both employers are selling products or services that the purchaser finds the same, i.e. they have no preference for who they buy it from. Employer B takes the money they save by paying employees less, and invests in newer, better facilities or R&D or whatever. Now employer B is selling a bette…
> Employer B takes the money they save by paying employees less, and invests in newer, better facilities or R&D or whatever. In practice, Employer B takes the money and pays Employer B (ie the senior staff) with it.
Considering there is new development happening all the time, clearly there must be some funds leftover.
Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers
#200I wish redistribution to the very bottom was a bigger part of the political debate. Our politics is currently focused on redistribution from the very top to the middle class. (Stuff like free college or universal healthcare would primarily benefit the top half, because those folks are the ones who are in a position to be accepted to and attend college, and aren’t already covered by Medicaid.) The math of that is toug…
Because all politically profitable strategies at increases taxes for the rich are always about giving a benefit to the most politically powerful group: the middle class.
A society where the top 90% pitches in to help the 10% in distress is very different to the one where the middle 50% takes from the top 25%, and leaves some scraps to the bottom 25%. - Milton Friedman