But the "execs" somehow manage the purge when the billion dollar loss comes and heads get chopped---the hard working rank and file grunts aren't so lucky!!
Any unhappy billionaires out there that want to trade bank accounts?
After $60,000 a year, money does not bring human beings any additional happiness. Now, I'm no communist or socialist, but could we please at least pass a law capping CEO pay at $1,000,000 a year or something? No one needs multiple millions per year, and it would be really nice if the janitors could make $25 per hour instead of the measly $7 per hour. Not to mention that our lovely providers would benefit from all the extra clientele.
Let's suppose we did cap all pay at 1,000,000 year. If that were the case, just who would buy all the luxury yachts, planes, multi million dollar houses etc etc etc?
If I made a lousy sixty grand a year, I'd be fucking miserable as I would only be able to get laid about as often as you do without doing the unthinkable, getting GF.
and yes you are a communist/socialist with an attitude that people who work hard and take risks aren't entitled to the fruits of their labor. As for "our lovely providers" seeing an uptick in business, just how many hookers, even at a modest $300 hr, do you think the guy making a paltry sixty grand a year is going to be able to see?
What a fucking load of crap, you might not be able to buy happiness, but you can most certainly rent it.
Well, I suppose that luxury items would become more affordable, but they would still be purchased by the ones making a million per year, not those making 60,000. And remember, it could be worse. I could be pushing for putting the cap at $60,000. But I understand the need for competition, and of course the CEO should make more than the janitor. It should just be a more reasonable percentage, and the janitor should be able to take his kids to Disneyland, or hire Fancy8888, too.
Or saving his money and creating his own janitorial business, hiring more janitors in the process and making a real contribution to this country?
And just why would luxury items become more affordable. Do you really think a hundred foot yacht is going to become affordable because of an arbitrary cap on earnings?
I like you Van, or at least I do most of the time, but your last two post indicate you have caught a serious case of the "stupids"
Nothing is keeping the janitor from learning new skills. The problem is that there is more demand for janitors than there is for CEOs, computer scientists, and other "high skill" positions. No one should live in poverty because there is more demand for "low skills." No, I have not caught a case of "the stupids." I have educated myself myself on the subject well enough to know that unrestrained Capitalism is just as bad as Communism.
You are now in full blown moron territory.
Hard working janitors do not live in poverty, if you want to see true poverty try going to one of those "workers paradises" like Cuba or Venezuela.
I doubt you have ever seen true poverty. You should try getting out more often, it might open your eyes to some things.
However, when I meet people from Nigeria or Ethiopia who came here for a better life, and they're like "WTF, Minneapolis looks like the third world country where I came from," it gives me a good indication of how our nation and economy are really doing.
You are getting dumber with each and every post you make.
Even in our worst slums the typical household has flat screens, cell phones and cable/satellite TV. Go to a slum in any third world country and indoor plumbing or running water is considered a luxury.
You have no fucking idea how lucky you have it and how you are squandering the opportunities other people would kill or die for.
Sure you're not thinking of Detroit? Minneapolis is Emerald city compared to Detroit.
I agree with most of what you say. But should corporate officers that make one bad decision after another continue to be rewarded with huge salleries and bonuses, and the rest of us ( you included ) have to help bail out the pension funds they bankrupt.
If the Fortune 50 had to earn money the way you do, there would be major changes. Let's not even talk about government.
I am a fan of if you earn it, keep it and do what you want with it. In my opinion, from reading here you and some of your like minded friends probably do more to help in certain under developed countries than most politicians. Keep up the good work.
$60K a year is a joke. And $1 million a year ain't that much. I know from experience. No, money cannot but happiness, but not enough money can sure as shit make you unhappy.
Sorry you have to live on only $7 an hour.
Actually, Jake, I make $16 an hour as a cook II, and I'm trying to get promoted to cook I, and eventually, sous chef. My rent is $500 per month, and will stay in that range as long as I'm willing to have roommates. It's the cigarettes and alimony that really fuck me over. Still, I stand by my insistence on caps on salaries. You can call me a commie all you want, but if the U.S. had 3 Trillionaires and 30% unemployment, would you really be OK with unrestrained capitalism? Somehow I doubt it.
So yes, you ARE a fucking commie who is blaming others for your own inability to fuck a hooker more than once every several months.
Who's fault is it that you smoke cigarettes, and who forced you into a bad marriage and divorce?
Bitching about alimony is one thing, but blaming rich people for your addiction to cigarettes is just too fucking much. You are now among the front runners for SPOTY.
How about you grow a set of balls and take control of your own fucking life? How is that for a solution?
First of all, I hope you succeed. That said, your nicotine addiction and failed marriage are not my problem. And your scenario that the alternative is 3 trillionaires and 30% unemployment is bogus.
CEOs are making millions a year and receiving multi million dollar bonuses that aren't taxed because of some loophole? At least tax the damn bonuses!
Just not at the same rate as "ordinary income".
Personally I think CEO pay should be tied to profitability. I am the CEO of my own company, if my company makes no money, neither do I, as it should be. CEO of public companies often make tens of millions of dollars even during years where their companies lose hundreds of millions or more. Now THAT is a fucking travesty I agree.
My pay is 100% determined by the profitability of my businesses. It is how heads of companies should be paid in my opinion.
And yes like you I am taxed, bonuses and all. There is such a thing as minimum tax rate for high income earners. It is the janitors making $7 an hour that aren't taxed.
The poor may not pay income tax, but they still pay taxes...in the form of sales tax, liquor tax, cigarette tax, and sin taxes for cheap junk food (and the cheap junk food comes from products subsidized by the government).
Performance starts at the top, as does non-performance. So should pay. Golden parachutes gotta go.
I sure as hell liked mine!
Believe it or not, Zen, people generally have to work hard for an entire career to become a senior executive who qualifies for such a contract.
With all the time boozing, gambling, fucking, traveling to Latin America, more fucking, drinking, hours and hours posting to TER, sleeping, fucking, dating, drinking .... I think that leaves about 10 hours per year for real work. Take your annual earnings, divide by 10 and that might make you the highest paid CEO, by the hour.
Just not at the same rate as "ordinary income".
Personally I think CEO pay should be tied to profitability. I am the CEO of my own company, if my company makes no money, neither do I, as it should be. CEO of public companies often make tens of millions of dollars even during years where their companies lose hundreds of millions or more. Now THAT is a fucking travesty I agree.
There is a huge difference between a public company and a private company. Mylan and Heather Bresch are examples of how public companies and their CEO's should NOT be allowed to behave.
Put it this way---if I don't perform where I'm employed my a$$ is out the door---should be the same standard for the execs/owners as well. Most of the time it isn't!!
I am an owner, not an exec. My pay is 100% tied to profitability an exec is not.
If my company loses a million bucks this year, my pay is "a negative one million dollars" as that million gets sucked right out of my pocket. I get no pay whatsoever. If you company loses a billion, you still get your paycheck, as do all the "execs" at your company. HUGE fucking difference.
But the "execs" somehow manage the purge when the billion dollar loss comes and heads get chopped---the hard working rank and file grunts aren't so lucky!!
See, GaG? You're a commie too!
I think people should be able to "earn" billions if they can. I am only against people making millions for doing a shitty job. It rewards "bad behavior" just like paying a hooker who shows up 20 years older, 40 pounds heavier AND with a bad fucking attitude.
I am the consummate capitalist. I 100% believe in the free market system and quite frankly consider your earlier comments idiotic
I started with nothing and worked my ass of for every fucking dime I have. I risked everything to start my first business, and I mean everything. I sold my blood plasma to even eat that first year so my business could grow. After my first business was stable I started a second, then a third and so on. I sacrificed and took risks for my income a way no janitor does. Do I not deserve the spoils MY EFFORTS rewarded me with?
Look there is absolutely nothing stopping a janitor form doing exactly what I did. After all I did it with little education or money. I work four jobs barely paying minimal. Jobs like stuffing newspapers with ads, cooking at a McDonald's, stocking shelves at Walmart for my start up capital. When I saved enough I started my first business risking everything on a long shot only a fool would have backed, I backed me. I built something out of nothing using my blood, sweat and tears, quite literally to do so. But most don't because most play it safe. Working for someone is playing it safe at least financially. A janitor faces minimal risk. A Janitor gets to go home at night and be done. A janitor only has to worry about his job. None of that is true for me nor is it true form many business owners and CEO's. They ether worked damn hard taking real risks, and/or they worked real smart while taking risks to get where they are, and that janitor not so much.
But lets say your dream happens. As I would have to surrender income as is under said law, why in god's name world I work hard to grow further increasing my workload for zero reward, let alone take the risk of starting yet another business? I have created over 200 jobs that didn't exist before, some are high paying jobs, what happen to them if growth is no longer rewarding to me so I dissolve businesses as I can't earn income off of them because of the income cap? Think things through. People don't do things for nothing.
And again what keep a janitor from learning skills to increase his value thus his earnings? Most people do. Most people have work a minimum wage or near minimum wage job at some point in their lives yet most move up as only 3% over the age of 25 years old are making minimum. Do you know why minimum wage jobs pay what they do? There is no demand for such jobs forcing wages up. It has nothing to do with their bosses wage, it is simple supply vs demand for the skills required for said job. If they cost more many jobs paying minimal would be cut. It would make it harder for marginalized people to get jobs as I know as an employer I take much fewer flyers on employees making $25 then I do at $9 (the lowest wage I pay). It would not fix anything.
You sir are working on a false premise that money would go from CEO's and the like to the minimum wage jobs it won't. And people that say I didn't earn my income piss me the hell off.
Not all CEOs are also the entrepreneurs of the companies they run, and many entrepreneurs were not poor to begin with. Your story is relatively rare these days. If everyone had the ability and resources to get rich than very few people would become rich. The disparity between the poor and rich exists because most of those who become rich already had more advantages than your average citizen along with having come from wealthy families already.
Most people on this thread that is. How the heck did they come up with so much money for paying escorts yet demonstrated such a lack of understanding how the corporate world works.
First off I agree that most CEOs are overpaid and do not deserve the money received. That is if they are judged by the performance of their companies as someone said. This is especially true with the tech world. Many haven't earned yet a dime in profit and runs red ink every year yet their CEOs and senior management still rakes in millions. Take Twitter for example last year 2016 they lost $457 millions or almost half a billion dollars. Do you think their CEO and senior executives made minimum wage? or negative wage since they lost money?
You can't arbitrarily cap salary at any amount since this is a capitalist country with a democracy. However you can certainly tax the hell out of them overpaid CEOs. Do it like in Europe where the very top earners pay like 90% tax rate.
That brings up another question of why are they so overpaid in the first place? The answer is they got paid by the board of directors who get to decide how much to compensate including stock options and benefits. It just so happens that the board of directors are simply comprised of mainly CEOs and senior executives of other companies. Of which the CEO and executives of this company sit on the other board of directors. You all can see where this is going. It is an old boy's network of CEOs and executives doing one another's favor scratching each other's back. That is why CEO and executive pays are ridiculous.
So I hear one or two here happens to be successful entrepreneurs and were "lucky" enough to get to the top. Yes I said "lucky" because no matter how had you worked or how smart you are you still need the luck of first of all good health, supportive families and friends, being at the right place at the right time and no disaster befell you on your way to the top.
And if you're smart enough to get to the top being the founder of your company why are you still so dumb as to pay yourself salary? Nobody smart does that. They incorporate and if they still want to lead the company can pay themselves as little as $1 to avoid tax. That's what corporate tax lawyers are for. To "structure" your earning so you can pay as little in taxes as possible.
That earned compensation has nothing to do with the amount of work you do or how hard you work the better. Earned compensation is divided by job tier and framework. The entry and support staff levels earn the lowest compensation, but often times their work is much more demanding and they get pay caps. Executives and managerial levels can out earn anyone else because they are given bigger incentives.
But it can buy you a boat
From a young age, I always knew being rich wasn't the end all be all. People who grow up with everything take it for granted and won't ever be grateful the way I am when I acquire something. Not to mention never knowing who your real friends are.
Successful I became the fewer friends and friendly relatives I had. A lot of them I foun out were just the so-called hangers on. Now, has am still successful and very happy with just some acquaintances.
I'da never thunk I would agree w/Gambler! - he's been wrong on every issue to-date! 🙂 He and I debate politics and taxes ad infiinitum and agree on NOTHING , ZERO (0).
Minor point: if all it took was $60K to be happy, then you must be living in India.
Main point: we are kinda/sorta a capitalist country, which means, people are free to work hard/smart to earn whatever kind of living that they can/want. Without this incentive to earn more than a "paycheck" we (U.S.A.) wouldn't have a fraction of the inventions etc. that we all enjoy.
I'm all for progressive tax system, but I AIN'T for everyone getting the same take-home pay
I started my own business and when I do service accounts I average $25 an hour. I make more for repair work, but thats only when it happens and is often 5 hours or less when it does happen. How on earth does a guy emptying garbage cans and mopping floors make as much as me who started his own business? When I was an entry level aerospace machinist, I made $14.65 an hour with a shift premium if I worked 2nd or 3rd shift. Why on earth should someone at McDonalds make $15 an hour for taking orders, when I was a machinist is making $15.00 and machining parts for fighter jets holding tolerances a fraction of the thickness of a human hair? I started cleaning out sump pumps and grease traps for $10 an hour and worked my way up to a machine when I proved I was a good employee. When I started my business, I rode along with a guy for no pay just to learn the ropes. I did that for two months. I had two customers and the company brought in $179 a month. Now after 7 years, I bring in an average of $7k a month gross. No one just gave me $25 an hour on service cleanings. I risked a lot and worked my way up one account at a time for almost 10 years to get there.
If people want to earn more money, they have to learn a skill. My friend went to a 2 year trade school for heating and cooling repair and stayed on another 6 months to get his commercial electric certificate. He was making $8.00 an hour in a warehouse and got hired starting at $15 for a commercial electric company. He drives a boom truck now swapping out lights and ballasts for business signs, parking lot lights and so on. After 2 years on the job, he was promoted and is up to $17 an hour. If someone wants a higher wage, they have to become more valuable. Why is that hard to understand? This is obviously a different issue than golden parachutes and large payouts to CEO's who run companies into the ground, or the corporate crooks, but lets be realistic. entry level positions are not careers.
and most particularly the laws of supply and demand. Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire because she delivers products that people want and nobody else can deliver. The janitor makes what he does because almost anyone can do his job.
If incomes are capped, who decides the number? If history has taught us anything, it's that controlled economies don't work. Also, if history has taught us anything, it is that those doing the controlling somehow seem to have more money than those being controlled. Vladmir Putin is worth an estimated $40 billion dollars. Not bad for a socialist.
Also, why is it that the villains are always those who control businesses? Leonardo Decaprio, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, and other Hollywood types routinely make $50 to $80 million in a single year, yet there's almost never a complaint.
As E. O. Wilson, the foremost authority on ants, said of communism and socialism: "Great idea. Wrong species."
I wish people would stop spreading the fantasy that anyone could be rich with hard work, because it's simply not true. Becoming wealthy usually requires a high level of intelligence, ruthlessness, great connections, luck or most often a combination of all four.
I don't know that anybody can become rich with hard work, but probably most people could if they put their minds to it. There's a lot of ways to become rich. You can be a plumber or electrician, open your own shop and hire more guys, and become a multi-millionaire without having an MBA.
The wealthiest people I've known have been some of the nicest. Tough negotiators, but down-to-earth people you'd never guess were incredibly rich.
Luck is usually something you make.
Perhaps I'm a pessimist in this regard and wished you could become rich if you put your mind to it, unfortunately I just don't agree. Many have been successful opening their own business but from what I've seen many also fail miserably. I think it's usually rare to become rich with your own business anyways. Most of the business owners I see could be considered middle to upper middle class but not wealthy. I think the wealthiest men I've seen were day traders or worked in finance.
Either way I think it's naive to say anyone can be wealthy with hard work and the right mindset. I think it's better to encourage people to always seek to improve themselves and their careers while still maintaining gratitude for what they have already.
Hard to say. Almost every successful business owner failed at least once, but got up and tried again. Without getting into politics, look at Trump. In the 90's he lost $950'million dollars. He took some smart remarks. about losing that much money, but he came back even wealthier.
My issue is with the OP. The idea that some people make too much money or that we should somehow all be more equal is nauseating. We can't all be equal and rich, if only by definition. We can all be equal by being poorer, though. Just about every socialist government has proved that.
Ahhh come on really?? Trump is a terrible example in terms of your every day Joe starting a business. Not everyone gets a million dollar loan from their parents to start up a business. A man who invests his entire life savings into a business and it fails? Completely devastating! I doubt Trump has ever had to worry about not having a home to live in at that point.
I don't necessarily believe everyone should be paid equally either but I do think people should be given a wage that would at least cover the necessities at the local cost of living. I'm not a fan of minimum wage being raised to $15 dollars nationally because in some areas like mine that's more than what it would cost for basic housing, transportation act. Places like NYC and LA? Definitely! We can't all be rich...but I'm sure the CEOs of these companies can spare a little more to make sure everyone has a living wage. The economy might perk up and there would be less of a drain on state assistance that way.
It's only "completely devastating" if you let it be. Getting knocked down is part of life, it's what you do AFTER you get knocked down that shows your true character. I have been a LOT broker than the OP, but I have never been "poor" As Dick Gregory so aptly put it "broke is a temporary condition, poor is a state of mind" I've been broke numerous times, but I've NEVER been poor, even when I didn't have a roof over my head or had any idea where my next meal was coming from. I never "blamed the system" for my own poor choices.
I have respect for someone who keeps trying and failing, a lot more respect than I have for some loser like the OP who thinks people that tried and succeeded somehow owe HIM something. I have ZERO respect for those people who whine about how tough it is, but don't lift a finger to change their situation.
Obviously circumstances are different for everyone. I will agree its never good to give up but know of a few who struggled to keep their business afloat after running into serious health issues. Obviously nothing is a "one size fits all". I commend you on rising from the ashes either way; you must be highly intelligent and a man of great ingenuity.
I definitely believe in taking personal responsibility for your actions especially in terms of divorce. I still think the minimum wage should be scaled according to the cost of living. I personally don't have the goal of becoming wealthy. In terms of money I would just like to make enough to save and be comfortable and have a little fun every now and then.
The whole thing about minimum wage is that it means "if we could pay you any less, we would" Anyone who has been in the labor pool for more than a year or two still making minimum wage should be looking inward for the reason they haven't acquired the skills to compete in the job market rather than looking to the government to force employers to pay more than they think a certain skill is worth.
I do find it a bit ironic that hookers who are easily in the top 1% of "hourly pay" would be that concerned about the minimum wage as even the "lower end" of the TER girls still make 30-40 times the current minimum wage. I agree with Don, if you are feeling a bit guilty about making a dozen times the average wage in this country, presently at a little over twenty bucks an hour, PLEASE feel free to donate half your income to charity, or even more if you REALLY want to make a difference.
As for me, I don't make any claims to being that smart, but I not only believe in "personal responsibility" I live my life that way as well. I own my failures, and I have had many, but when I do get a win I own my wins as well, and moochers, or "wanna be moochers" like the OP just piss me off when they think they should be entitled to a piece of my success when they are nowhere to be found during MY times of hardship.
No it wasn't designed to be a living wage but it hasn't been adjusted for inflation in quite some time. We live in an age where you need a 4 year degree to be a $10/hr hotel clerk (at least in my neck of the woods) and good paying factory jobs are being outsourced. There's only so many jobs that will pay a "living wage" and many people competing for them. I think the only exception would be jobs in the engineering, mathematics, and science fields which typically have a disapproportionate number of foreign people because not enough Americans are qualified to fill those jobs.
I'm not sure why you would find it "ironic" why we would care about the plight of those who make a lot less than us. Many of us grew up poor as fuck and found this was a great way to avoid what our parents went through. My own mom was continuously laid off after my sister nearly drowned and developed health issues that required constant hospital visits.
I'm just shy of 30 myself. I was working at 13, under the table, at a factory. I was making well over minimum wage, and not paying taxes. I was rolling in cash, relatively speaking. They've adjusted the minimum wage a half dozen times since then. Call it child labor, exploitation or whatever, I call it one of the best things that could have happened to me.
See, you're saying it's terrible that factory jobs are being outsourced, I don't see it that way. The way I see it, a factory job is "below" what most Americans are willing to do. By the time you pay someone enough to put up with it, you can't make any profit. The work is just that bad. It's demoralizing, brain numbing, occasionally strenuous work. There's no happiness to be had with that kind of employment.
There's plenty of opportunity in this country, but a drought of people willing to go after it. For our country to be economically viable in the long term we need people willing to make their own luck, and arbitrarily increasing wages disincentives people from achieving what they could otherwise achieve.
The fact that you need a 4 year degree to work at a hotel should tell you much more about the state of our education system and the value that it is capable of imparting to someone than it should about the actual work that the hotel is requiring.
Jesus...you were working a factory job at 13? How is that even possible? I had a fricking paper route at that age that requires me to walk 5-6 miles a day but that's allowed for someone that age.
I know factory jobs are shitty but they pay better and have better benefits than any other unskilled job. In my home state of Michigan the Detroit area took a huge hit after the automotive companies moved their factories down to Mexico. Coal mining is a terrible dangerous job too yet many in West Virginia are fighting to bring it back because it pays well and you don't need a college degree.
Which brings me to my point about education...If blue collar jobs weren't either being outsourced or looked down upon than a college degree would likely be worth more. Everyone is pushing college on their children when you ultimately could be making more as a welder or auto mechanic than some useless liberal arts degree worth thousands of dollars could. So the hotel worker that's making $10/hr needs a four year degree because people with degrees have become so abundant that a bachelor's is the equivalent of a high school diploma. The exception is as I said something like a degree in a STEM field which I have personally tried to pursue in the past and me and so many other American students dropped out in droves or changed majors because of the difficulty and amount of time needed to study. Whether this says anything about the American education or the values our parents instill in us I will never know...but I rarely saw a foreign student drop out or change majors.
I don't doubt that there is oppurtunity out there but it takes knowledge, oppurtunity, time and ingenuity to find it. Most people are just trying to do the best they can to provide for themselves and their families working one, two, sometimes 3 jobs a day. So yes I think someone could make at least a comfortable, middle class income with hard work but become rich? No sorry....They are the 1% for a reason.
I was just using Trump as a well-known example. Yes, he got a million from his dad. That's not unusual. Money brother's kids will each get a million when he dies. Trump took that million and parlayed it into billions (thousands of millions). When he was in the hole for $950 million, he was trading in billions in property.
My point is that he was down $950 million, but persevered and came back to be worth more than he had been before the losses. Most people give up after the first loss. The successful do not.
Now, as to your point about "but I'm sure the CEOs of these companies can spare a little more to make sure everyone has a living wage". Well, you charge $250 an hour. That's more than most attorneys I've used. Couldn't you give up some of that to make sure that everyone has "a living wage"? Maybe you could take $125 of that $250 and give it to people on the street that aren't doing as well as you. You can spare it. You'd still be making far more per hour than 90% of the people in the country.
Your point is kind of moot since I have no one working under me and I don't profit from someone else's labor. I never said CEOs could spare some for everyone...I would have figured you would know I'm talking about the people employed by that company.
I only agree about CEO pay to the point where the CEO makes millions while running the company into the ground. I personally believe that just like "owners" the pay of CEO's should be tied to profitability.
You aren't going to cut CEO pay to the quick and still get the most qualified people, but I would be fine if individual boards put a limit on CEO "salaries" and made them earn their tens/hundreds of millions by actually having to do their jobs.
The disparity started in the 90’s, where if investors made out then CEO’s were rewarded financially, which left not much for the wage earner (the biggest losers), with no decent cost of living raise; hence a shrinking middle class.
But here, I’m talking about companies that have investors who own stock and where CEOs', who run those companies are responsible for generating profits for them. These CEOs will reap the greatest reward after the investors make a profit first. (Running one’s own business is a different story, with plenty of other problems to worry about like supply and demand and competition.)
As for myself, since working for companies and being layed-off from several of them (generally speaking), I’ve seen no reasonable cost of living raise since the late 1980’s, where the gap between middle class and top wage earners from then to now, is despicably phenomenal (just look at the many statistics).
But please, don’t rely on trickle-down economics as the solution to increased income, and get rid of the police and fire departments to do away with problematic socialism.
-- Modified on 4/21/2017 6:36:32 PM