thegreekdog wrote:Look Player, here is the problem with your last post. We spent the last couple of pages discussing CEOs, corporate power, and employees (and unemployment). This is the topic of this thread. In your last post, when confronted with a challenging question you veered into some other territory that is not the subject of this thread. I know you think that pollution, oil, energy, and the like are related to CEO salaries and unemployment, but you were the one who limited the discussion to CEOs, corporate power and unemployment. Your comments should be reflective of that limitation.
My answer was to BS's query. That was the answer.
thegreekdog wrote:You said, "CEO salaries lead to unemployment." Others have attempted to debunk this theory. Instead of defending it, you're referring to other, tangential issues. That's why it is sometimes frustrating to have these sorts of discussions with you. In order to follow your discussion progression, I would now need to argue about pollution. That doesn't really make sense.
No, actually, I have not truly said that CEO salaries lead to unemployment. That is how you have chosen to interpret what I have said, that is the argument BBS seems to think "liberals" all make. I have said that the mentality that says that these CEOs have to have their exhorbitant salaries or the companies won't do so well, and that its perfectly OK if those salaries bonuses and other moves come at the expense of low level employees (and note, I am particularly talking about the lowest level employees, not necessarily all the in-bestween levels, some of which could easily disappear) is wrong and why our system is continuing downhill.
Again, the CEO salary bit is brought up, but only as a symptom. Fixing the salaries won't change the system, because they, alone are not the problem. Add in ignorance of real world impacts, including impacts of pollution, worker conditions and the picture is even worse.
As an example, I just listened to an interviewer of temporary in home care providers. These workers tend to make minimal wages. One company intereviewed was paying its workers $9 an hour (quite high for that industry). He went on and on about how he could not pay more, how it would drive his company under, etc. The problem? He bills the families over $20 an hour. So, basically, what he was saying was that the person who was responsible for his company, the one doing the work that allowed him to have his job was worth less than 1/2 of what his company c harged. Now, I fully understand insurance and overhead costs. Still... I am willing to be he makes a great deal more than he was paying any one of the service workers. Yet... it was those workers who made his job, not him.
THAT is the kind of thinking that is driving this country into the pits. The fundaments of any company are not its CEO, its the workers. That doesn't mean that workers should make more than CEOs or any other stupid comment I know several of you want to make, but it does mean that if those employees are not getting enpough to live on, are not making a wage that allows them to eat, have clothes, rent or buy a reasonable house (note.. I am fine with having 2-3 kids in a bedroom and so forth, but the plumbing and lights must work and it must be reasonably heated, etc.), then the "profits" that company claims to be making are coming at the backs of taxpayers.. even t hat CEO salary is coming on the backs of taxpayers asked to support the company employees so that the executives can take their high salaries.
The problem is not the salaries themselves. Some CEOs no doubt truly are worth millions. BUT.. right now, that calculation is based on just about everything BUT producting things, doing services in a straight and honest way. If the calculations were honest, then the first people to be paid reasonably are the basic workers. Other salaries come off of what is left, not the other way around.
I turn the old joke around, about the old farmer and the government labor guy. The labor guy comes and says he is investigating complaints that some people are not being paid reasonable wages, have to work too long of hours, etc. Teh farmer looks at him and says "we have only one guy like that here!". Of course, it is the farmer. That is a pretty true tale. BUT..the missing part is that the farmer may not always get the best wages, but he is the one who owns the land. He takes it in the shorts when times are tough, but he makes the profits when times are better.. and, he has the investment in the land itself to fall back upon.
The person who is "owed" first is not the owner, not the stockholders, it is the workers..a nd I don't just mean that they should get whatever measly wage you can get someone to work for. That is not real value. Serfs and slaves each worked and worked hard. If wages dictated working standards and value, then neither of those systems would have persisted. Today, workers are not serfs, but they are taken advantage of in many, many ways..a nd CEOs are often way clueless about what it takes for their workers to just get by.
