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When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

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Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#121

Post by moate »

kkarakk wrote: post #113
xg15 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wanna increase salaries and stock grants? Sure, do it. Two quarters later Wall Street will fuck you up because your new shiny compensation model just shaved the company revenue. ... So that 5% of lost revenue is going to cost you 20% or 30% of market value, and now all those stock grants are 30% less valuable. So your great initiative just put you in a negative spiral. This basically, is what people mean when they…

if I get paid 15 bucks an hour as a picker at an amazon warehouse. why wouldn't I be incentivized to actively facilitate shrinkage at that warehouse? fuck the system guys,get paid

"Facilitate Shrinkage" is such a great phrase.

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#122

Post by pjc50 »

chongli wrote: post #85
xg15 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wanna increase salaries and stock grants? Sure, do it. Two quarters later Wall Street will fuck you up because your new shiny compensation model just shaved the company revenue. ... So that 5% of lost revenue is going to cost you 20% or 30% of market value, and now all those stock grants are 30% less valuable. So your great initiative just put you in a negative spiral. This basically, is what people mean when they…

businesses don't seem to have a choice Sure they do. There are plenty of smart, prudent retirement plans for companies to offer to their employees that don't involve crippling liabilities down the road. Defined contribution pensions, tax free retirement accounts, dollar-for-dollar matching (up to a limit) etc. Defined benefit pensions were a bad idea born of a "I'll be retired before then so let's kick the can down t…

I'm not sure a defined benefit pension is inherently worse than a defined benefit salary, but the real problem is tying it to the continued life of the company rather than a nice separate fund.

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#123

Post by aaron_oxenrider »

anticensor wrote: post #114
_cs2017_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, every American who makes less money than they deserve, has two choices: (1) Find a way to make more money. (2) Appeal to the sense of fairness to get sympathy from the community. Sadly, according to US federal law (4 U.S.C. §§ 888), anyone who earned a total compensation in excess of 7 times national average individual median income, loses the right to option (2). Any attempt to exercise it will result in…

In the US, one earning more than 7 times national average income cannot accept gifts at all? Have I read right? "4 USC 888" does not exist.

It's a joke using a very dry sense of humor. The mix of cultures on this site make that hard to pick out at times but this one is wholly a joke.

As you found, that is not law.

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#124

Post by moate »

tryptophan wrote: post #105
snarfybarfy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can also argue that rising minimum wages directly benefit the economy as this money will be immediatly consumed. Giving $10 to a poor person will result in $10 more goods and services demand. Giving $10 to a very rich person will probably make 1/10th of a share change hands and have no effect on the real economy whatsoever.

This argument is a fallacy because it implies that money not spent is wasted somehow, but that is opposite of the truth, that savings underpin investment and thus growth.

Considering that the largest economic problem of the last 20 years (well all human history really, but it's been a keystone of economic strife recently) is the dramatic difference in the wealth growth between the wealthy and the wage increases of the remaining population, that whole "trickle down economics" myth has been sorta shorted out.

"Growth" can represent too many things and is thus a great slippery beast that can be used to obscure helping the wider population. We continue to see economic "growth" but wage increases has been stagnant for decades. Owners need fewer workers to amass revenue due to changes in the type economy as well as automation. You can grow a business without benefiting as many people as you used to. Look at how many people Bell Labs had working for it when it was in it's heyday vs how many people work for Google now.

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#125

Post by mlcrypto »

snarfybarfy wrote: post #74
mjevans wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be really nice if EVERYONE not in the 1% got a raise of some sort. An extra 1-2 an hour or whatever... However then the prices of everything would go up for everyone, just like they are everywhere. When the 'living wage' 15 USD/whatever minimums are passed don't the prices of everyday living just rise to meet that extra cash in the market? Meanwhile everyone who was previously making a little above minimum w…

One can also argue that rising minimum wages directly benefit the economy as this money will be immediatly consumed. Giving $10 to a poor person will result in $10 more goods and services demand. Giving $10 to a very rich person will probably make 1/10th of a share change hands and have no effect on the real economy whatsoever.

Might as well break some windows too to cause $100 of demand

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#126

Post by ghaff »

pjc50 wrote: post #122
chongli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

businesses don't seem to have a choice Sure they do. There are plenty of smart, prudent retirement plans for companies to offer to their employees that don't involve crippling liabilities down the road. Defined contribution pensions, tax free retirement accounts, dollar-for-dollar matching (up to a limit) etc. Defined benefit pensions were a bad idea born of a "I'll be retired before then so let's kick the can down t…

I'm not sure a defined benefit pension is inherently worse than a defined benefit salary, but the real problem is tying it to the continued life of the company rather than a nice separate fund.

It's not tied to the continued life of the company; for the most part, pension benefits are protected in a separate fund. (It's more complicated than that but I am by no means an expert.)

More to the point is that defined benefits, in addition to their other issues, are mostly oriented to long-term employment with a single company. If you move around every 2 or 3 years, you probably wouldn't get much if anything out of traditional defined benefit plans.

Traditional defined benefit pensions are nice in some ways for workers in that they're predictable. I'll even get a small one myself. But, like employer provided healthcare insurance, they're really not a good match for most purposes today.

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#127

Post by dantheman »

CydeWeys wrote: post #106
chongli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

businesses don't seem to have a choice Sure they do. There are plenty of smart, prudent retirement plans for companies to offer to their employees that don't involve crippling liabilities down the road. Defined contribution pensions, tax free retirement accounts, dollar-for-dollar matching (up to a limit) etc. Defined benefit pensions were a bad idea born of a "I'll be retired before then so let's kick the can down t…

Or even just direct contributions to retirement plans for all employees, no matching required. E.g. a company contributing $500 per month into the employee's 401k. My last company did something similar, but it was tied to salary and it was annual (prorated). I think a better case can be made for doing it monthly, so you don't need to bother with prorating, and also to do constant amounts for all employees rather than…

I like the plans where the first 7% is granted, and the last 3% is a match -- it helps everyone, and encourages personal contributions.

Re: When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated

#130

Post by WorldMaker »

pjc50 wrote: post #122
chongli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

businesses don't seem to have a choice Sure they do. There are plenty of smart, prudent retirement plans for companies to offer to their employees that don't involve crippling liabilities down the road. Defined contribution pensions, tax free retirement accounts, dollar-for-dollar matching (up to a limit) etc. Defined benefit pensions were a bad idea born of a "I'll be retired before then so let's kick the can down t…

I'm not sure a defined benefit pension is inherently worse than a defined benefit salary, but the real problem is tying it to the continued life of the company rather than a nice separate fund.

Especially in a Wall Street environment hyper-focused on 3-6 month results over anything else. It's very hard for companies to plan long term if the only thing the market seems to care about is how they did last quarter of a year. It's an interesting Gordian knot that businesses seem to have tied themselves into where companies still have expectations to exist for multiple generations, but all the performance indicators used to analyze them are so strongly focused on the immediate short term.
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