...
Ol P- have you seen the report on minimum wage? If it had remained proportionate, it would be in the $23 per hour range today. Wages aren't nearly the percentage of cash flow of business monies like they were in the 70's and 80's. They will tell you it is, but it's not. Corporate profit is higher now than it ever has been. They'll outsource in a heartbeat to increase profit margins, and STILL whine that employee wages are killing them.
I'm not talking about Fed or State minimum wage jobs.
The Teacher's Union in WA State threatens to strike nearly every year for higher wages. Even the engineers at Boeing have walked out twice in the past 7-8 years. The operating costs trickle down through every level, from the clerk at the register, to transportation costs of warehousing and handling delivery. We've been in an upward spiral of more demands by more workers for decades. The cost of fuels has only recently entered the equation.
The effort involved in punching out an equipment part in a factory has not changed, other than to get easier through improved manufacturing techniques. The costs of materials has increased, but only because it costs more to supply those materials. Why?
From the standpoint of a corporation, they are forced to reduce their labor force when the salary and benefits paid to one worker are equal to what it cost them to employ two workers 20 years ago.
Why do the workers feel the need more money? To pay higher bills for everything from utilities, to toasters, to pharmaceuticals. What has driven those costs up? The demand for more compensation for the same amount of work. "Greed".....
"Why do the workers feel the need more money? To pay higher bills for everything from utilities, to toasters, to pharmaceuticals. What has driven those costs up? The demand for more compensation for the same amount of work. "Greed"....."
"The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country." George F. Baer, July 1902.
"There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down." David Ricardo, 1820.
"The iron law of wages." Turgot, 1766 (Named but theory credited to Ricardo, above).
Walmart is the largest company in the world.
1. Walmart earned $485.7 billion in revenue in 2014, which outpaced No. 2 Exxon Mobil by $103 billion.
2. If Walmart were a country, its sales would rank it 28th in the world in GDP. That?s right behind Norway and ahead of Austria.
Source: Fortune.
Among other practices, Walmart routinely pays employees wages at levels that necessitate them to seek public assistance. The company even goes as far as to, famously, provide information on how to get on the dole. Assistance that is provided by the public treasury. That's us, folks.
A situation that "advances" the Iron Law Of Wages downward beyond what even early industrial capitalists considered minimal standards of subsistence. Early industrial capitalists argued for the limiting, if not rescission, of the "Poor Laws" of their day, now their use is the most profitable "business model."
It is always interesting to see working folks arguing in favor of their own oppression. In a sad and unfortunately predictable way that would make Calvin feel if not happy at least reassured.
Friends, if anyone thinks this is about political parties or ideologies or hard working or lazy or "security" or this and that label you are seriously mistaken. It's just about money - who creates it, controls it, the how of it we all understand the why. That's all it's ever about. The rest is just smoke and mirrors.
Now it's time for me to go outside and play. That at least is real.