Nobody is going to disagree with tying productivity to wages. It absolutely should be that way. It's expected that somebody doing strenuous, difficult labor should be paid more for their work. But, it's ridiculous to say that wages now are currently tied to productivity. The problem is that they are tied more to impact instead. For example, a CEO is going to have more impact than a ground-level employee, simply by being at the head of the company, and they will make far more based on this.
Again, being skilled labor, it should pay more to compensate the cost of education and/or stress, but not 331 times as much as your average worker. And the numbers on that article say the difference is actually 774 times as much when you compare average CEO wage income to minimum wage. There is something fundamentally wrong when a worker can pull a double-shift (16 hours in a day) doing backbreaking work in a factory and hardly make a living wage out of it (being far more productive in their role than most of us can say), while upper management gets paid far more for what seems to be far less effort.
Regarding the money having to come from somewhere (that's what businesses are for, right?), like the above poster said, this CEO in the top post clearly was making enough money from customers to give himself a 100% raise, so you can't use that sort of thing as an excuse in every case. I also agree with minimum wage being ultimately damaging to smaller companies (10 or less) where -everyone- is making a lower salary while the company gets itself off of the ground. If employees want to work at a company with growth potential and true chances for salary increases in the long run, it should be their choice.
But, good luck instead fixing either of these real issues by tying highest paid wage in a company to the lowest paid wage before just increasing minimum wage again to kick the problem down the road for the next generation.
I'm not saying everything is perfectly fine in the world.
I just presented some facts / dynamics that apply regardless of what people think about the minimum wage or what it's supposed to achieve.
Want to get paid like a CEO? -Go become a CEO. Although to be fair, it's not quite that simple considering most big company CEOs are psychopaths and we're just not all CEO-material like that.. :p
Want to get paid the minimum wage? -Don't do anything to acquire new skills that would raise your value for your employers.
this CEO in the top post clearly was making enough money from customers to give himself a 100% raise, so you can't use that sort of thing as an excuse in every case
I don't think you're accusing me of anything I'm actually guilty of here. But you know, if someone owns a business, he gets to decide how much of the profits he takes for himself. It's really that simple, and that's part of why people generally start companies to begin with - they want to become wealthy.
Remember, people can't have jobs at a company that was never started! (by a filthy, greedy capitalist oppressor pig, of course).
"Want to get paid like a CEO? -Go become a CEO" Except not everyone can be a CEO, even if they were qualified, because the positions are severely limited. That sort of limitation is exactly why this is an issue.
"Want to get paid the minimum wage? -Don't do anything to acquire new skills that would raise your value for your employers." And what about all of the college degree holding employees that still earn minimum wage? Disregarding those that are holding art degrees, you would think that this would raise their value, right? Apparently not.
"I don't think you're accusing me of anything I'm actually guilty of here."
Let me be more direct then. I'm accusing you of saying that lower-level workers can't be paid more because that money has to come from somewhere, but ignoring when upper-level workers freely give their selves raises. If you want to say money is limited, -or- that top-level management can pay themselves what ever they want, it's fine. When you say both though, like you have, it's flatout disingenuous.
"But you know, if someone owns a business, he gets to decide how much of the profits he takes for himself." Unless the government regulates it, which is exactly what I proposed by tying the paid salary extremes to each other. Did you not read my post?
"Want to get paid like a CEO? -Go become a CEO" Except not everyone can be a CEO, even if they were qualified, because the positions are severely limited. That sort of limitation is exactly why this is an issue.
The positions are limited? -What's that supposed to mean? It's not like there's some evil capitalist limiting CEO positions so that you wouldn't get one!
But you know, scarce things are valuable. Very few people can successfully run a big company, and that's exactly why the CEOs are paid so much. In other words, there is no issue, and it's not up to you to decide how much is too much money for a CEO.
Please realize that I'm not saying everything is fine in the corporate world. For example Wall Street is a hive of psychopaths that are happily destroying economies for their own personal gain. Wall Street CEOs are paid shitloads of money, but that's also largely because raping economies is extremely lucrative. So I'm not saying they, in particular, deserve what they're getting.
But take someone like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs and there is no problem with them getting as much money as they can and want to.
Disregarding those that are holding art degrees, you would think that this would raise their value, right? Apparently not.
Yes, apparently not. You only really learn by doing things in the real world. A degree's value has been mostly as a "signal" that someone is a capable person. Now with all these graduates around, the signal value has diminished too. Then there's the economy, which is in shambles (despite what the govt says), and so on..
It's not as simple as "these people should be paid more, just because they need more money!" .. there are a lot of factors that go into the current situation, and ultimately people are paid what they're worth (as EMPLOYEES, dammit).
I'm accusing you of saying that lower-level workers can't be paid more because that money has to come from somewhere, but ignoring when upper-level workers freely give their selves raises. If you want to say money is limited, -or- that top-level management can pay themselves what ever they want, it's fine. When you say both though, like you have, it's flatout disingenuous.
Nope, there is no problem with what I said. That's because the business owners are, again, free to decide how they use the business' money, even if they do pay themselves large salaries. It's up to the business owners to decide on what terms they will want to keep running the business.
Imagine yourself running a McDonald's franchise. How much money per year would you want for yourself, in order to feel like it's a worthwhile endeavor? Whose business would your salary be? Would you accept someone else dictating the terms on which you'll continue running the franchise? Like, someone decides that you're paying yourself too much, so you'll only get half of what you wanted, but you have to keep going anyway? .. Would that be alright?
Of course not. You would not accept that for yourself, so don't suggest that any other business should be "regulated" in the same way. That's just hypocritical.
"Oh you want to stop running your business? -Well that's too bad. We have decided that you will be forced to continue, because your poor little employees need their paychecks!"
Nobody is going to disagree with tying productivity to wages. It absolutely should be that way. It's expected that somebody doing strenuous, difficult labor should be paid more for their work. But, it's ridiculous to say that wages now are currently tied to productivity. The problem is that they are tied more to impact instead. For example, a CEO is going to have more impact than a ground-level employee, simply by being at the head of the company, and they will make far more based on this.
Again, being skilled labor, it should pay more to compensate the cost of education and/or stress, but not 331 times as much as your average worker. And the numbers on that article say the difference is actually 774 times as much when you compare average CEO wage income to minimum wage. There is something fundamentally wrong when a worker can pull a double-shift (16 hours in a day) doing backbreaking work in a factory and hardly make a living wage out of it (being far more productive in their role than most of us can say), while upper management gets paid far more for what seems to be far less effort.
Regarding the money having to come from somewhere (that's what businesses are for, right?), like the above poster said, this CEO in the top post clearly was making enough money from customers to give himself a 100% raise, so you can't use that sort of thing as an excuse in every case. I also agree with minimum wage being ultimately damaging to smaller companies (10 or less) where -everyone- is making a lower salary while the company gets itself off of the ground. If employees want to work at a company with growth potential and true chances for salary increases in the long run, it should be their choice.
But, good luck instead fixing either of these real issues by tying highest paid wage in a company to the lowest paid wage before just increasing minimum wage again to kick the problem down the road for the next generation.
I'm not saying everything is perfectly fine in the world.
I just presented some facts / dynamics that apply regardless of what people think about the minimum wage or what it's supposed to achieve.
Want to get paid like a CEO? -Go become a CEO. Although to be fair, it's not quite that simple considering most big company CEOs are psychopaths and we're just not all CEO-material like that.. :p
Want to get paid the minimum wage? -Don't do anything to acquire new skills that would raise your value for your employers.
I don't think you're accusing me of anything I'm actually guilty of here. But you know, if someone owns a business, he gets to decide how much of the profits he takes for himself. It's really that simple, and that's part of why people generally start companies to begin with - they want to become wealthy.
Remember, people can't have jobs at a company that was never started! (by a filthy, greedy capitalist oppressor pig, of course).
"Want to get paid like a CEO? -Go become a CEO" Except not everyone can be a CEO, even if they were qualified, because the positions are severely limited. That sort of limitation is exactly why this is an issue.
"Want to get paid the minimum wage? -Don't do anything to acquire new skills that would raise your value for your employers." And what about all of the college degree holding employees that still earn minimum wage? Disregarding those that are holding art degrees, you would think that this would raise their value, right? Apparently not.
"I don't think you're accusing me of anything I'm actually guilty of here." Let me be more direct then. I'm accusing you of saying that lower-level workers can't be paid more because that money has to come from somewhere, but ignoring when upper-level workers freely give their selves raises. If you want to say money is limited, -or- that top-level management can pay themselves what ever they want, it's fine. When you say both though, like you have, it's flatout disingenuous.
"But you know, if someone owns a business, he gets to decide how much of the profits he takes for himself." Unless the government regulates it, which is exactly what I proposed by tying the paid salary extremes to each other. Did you not read my post?
The positions are limited? -What's that supposed to mean? It's not like there's some evil capitalist limiting CEO positions so that you wouldn't get one!
But you know, scarce things are valuable. Very few people can successfully run a big company, and that's exactly why the CEOs are paid so much. In other words, there is no issue, and it's not up to you to decide how much is too much money for a CEO.
Please realize that I'm not saying everything is fine in the corporate world. For example Wall Street is a hive of psychopaths that are happily destroying economies for their own personal gain. Wall Street CEOs are paid shitloads of money, but that's also largely because raping economies is extremely lucrative. So I'm not saying they, in particular, deserve what they're getting.
But take someone like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs and there is no problem with them getting as much money as they can and want to.
Yes, apparently not. You only really learn by doing things in the real world. A degree's value has been mostly as a "signal" that someone is a capable person. Now with all these graduates around, the signal value has diminished too. Then there's the economy, which is in shambles (despite what the govt says), and so on..
It's not as simple as "these people should be paid more, just because they need more money!" .. there are a lot of factors that go into the current situation, and ultimately people are paid what they're worth (as EMPLOYEES, dammit).
Nope, there is no problem with what I said. That's because the business owners are, again, free to decide how they use the business' money, even if they do pay themselves large salaries. It's up to the business owners to decide on what terms they will want to keep running the business.
Imagine yourself running a McDonald's franchise. How much money per year would you want for yourself, in order to feel like it's a worthwhile endeavor? Whose business would your salary be? Would you accept someone else dictating the terms on which you'll continue running the franchise? Like, someone decides that you're paying yourself too much, so you'll only get half of what you wanted, but you have to keep going anyway? .. Would that be alright?
Of course not. You would not accept that for yourself, so don't suggest that any other business should be "regulated" in the same way. That's just hypocritical.
"Oh you want to stop running your business? -Well that's too bad. We have decided that you will be forced to continue, because your poor little employees need their paychecks!"