Bella

I touched on this subject briefly in an exchange with oldtimer in the minimum wage thread. I just came across this article. In my opinion, unless the U.S. really gets its act together to address this head on, the minimum wage will be the least of our problems. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/12/billionaire-says-ai-could-put-workers-out-to-pasture.html

Still at this I see. Well here is my final comment on this thread. the U.S. does not operate in a vacuum with the rest of the world. Everybody seems to be ignoring U.S. wage structure as it applies beyond our borders. As I stated back in post #60 and virtually everyone ignored, now that markets have opened and continue to open around the globe we are competing with millions of people making less per hour than even our lowest paid workers. Some of them are coming here, competing for those lowest paid jobs. More are coming every month. These opening of markets where cheap labor is available and the influx of immigrants into the U.S. who will work for less, is poison to those looking for a higher minimum. Corporations are being forced more and more to become multi-national to survive. Those who do global business need to find the lowest cost workers to compete with companies offering products at ever-cheaper prices. The more these markets open up, the less likely the minimum wage can be sustained at the current push for $15 in this country. Frankly, it's an unrealistic pipe dream. Not to pour salt in the wound but obviously, those companies are adding assets across the globe: factories, operations centers, etc. That's more responsibility and more to manage so, you guessed it, CEO compensation packages will continue to increase. The wage gap between them and the minimum wage worker will continue to rise. See it as two lakes isolated from each other by a damn. One lake (the U.S.), has more resources than the other lake so if you were to remove the damn, the lake with the higher level drains into the other lake until the two are equal. We are not going to rebuild the damn so the U.S. can expect more wage deflation until an equilibrium is obtained. It may take decades, if we have decades left. That is the reality that needs to be faced.

Where have I ever stated that I see the poor as beggars?

"When CEO begs board members to give him some stock, is that also a handout?" begs? Hah! Negotiates. A difference big enough to drive millions of striking minimum wage earners through.

Oldtimer has elected to be my first friend. Behind the scenes we are making sure we understand each other.

To be fair, the article quoted Buffet as saying he does not believe the super-rich CEOs are undeserving of their money. Perhaps. But someone on these forums appears to think they have more insider knowledge, more collective intelligence than all of the corporations and business managers, to determine that others are overpaid in relation to the rest of the public. Socialism and communism are proven failures as forms of government. I cannot for the life of me figure out why people continue to foster them.

And this is immoral and nothing but greed run amuck. I don't care who you is you ain't worth $100 million a year, sorry your job is not 2 thousand times harder than mine. Just my $.02 Just a very simplistic example if you take the "wage/salary/benefits" as a "pool of funds" in a corporate budget to be divided and distributed amongst everyone in the corporation. It makes sense why the NFL players association will bargain for wages to be a percentage of the gross revenues. We also know that it is very lucrative to be an NFL owner even with roughly 2/3 of the total NFL revenues going to the players and having a wage structure with a minimum salary for the players that increases each year. I find it interesting that in the 1970's Peter F. Drucker (during this time, a well-respected American management guru) had endorsed the 20 to 1 ratio for CEO to median worker in sustaining robust growth. Up until this time the U.S. was very prosperous with this 20 to 1 ratio, yet, look where we are today. A survey of the S&P 500 index companies, during 2012 the compensation received by the CEO was 354 times that of the median of the rank-and-file worker and look at the general downward trends in prosperity. I agree with your point, but it's not actually "CEOs" which are the trouble. It's the billionaires who often are just speculators, hedge fund runners, and raiders, where most of the wealth is going. Not to minimize the CEO pay, but making $50M a year isn't the troouble spot. It's he guy making $2B a year through other means, which is the problem. I do realize that the CEO pay isn't the trouble spot and have some familiarity with the speculators, hedge funds and the leveraged-buyout business and I agree with your other posts on the bigger picture. I suspect that a good portion is the result of manipulation of the system by the conflict of interest that arises in a 'self-dealing' situation where the CEO is in a position to greatly take advantage of the position in transactions and acting in his or her self-interest rather than in the best interests of the shareholders. For example, it seems plausible that CEOs get these enormous pay packages in part because they are often the persons that hire the compensation consultant, appoint the compensation committees on the boards that decide executive pay. I suppose that in other instances to “appear competitive” the boards may not want to be seen by investors as not having hired a “top-tier” CEO and may not want to be seen as paying less than the CEOs of their major competitors. Yes but the only reason they have negotiating power is from past performance that they can offer as proof. You can't just be a good negotiator and land one of these jobs. An assumption. The business model that has been in place for many years would argue against it. The CEO compensation information is available in the Schedule 14A proxy statements regarding the benchmarking, among other aspects in setting that compensation that goes on, in addition to various other “high level” and "legal-type" Compensation Discussion & Analysis that provides insights into how the CEO compensation is set (along with similar compensation information of other highly compensated executives of the corporation). I linked the McDonald’s proxy a few pages back; however, I’ve read more of these disclosures than I care to think about and none show a clear link to historical performance and compensation. If it was that simple in paying for historical performance, I’m curious as to why the "historical performance for compensation" link isn’t clear in the proxy statements as it could easily help our discussions here? In the first quote above, I fully realize that CEO pay isn’t the significant issue. To expand on that, in a Wall Street Journal column from May 2015 that Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (one of the richest men in the world), provided these two sets of data in that column that I found interesting: 1. “In 1982, the first year the Forbes 400 was compiled, those listed had a combined net worth of $93 billion. Today, the 400 possess $2.3 trillion, up 2400% in slightly more than 3 decades, a period in which the median household income rose only about 180%.” 2. “Meanwhile, a huge number of their fellow citizens have been living the American Nightmare – behaving well and working hard but barely getting by. In 1982, 15% of Americans were living below the poverty level; in 2013 the proportion was nearly the same, a dismaying 14.5%. In recent decades, our country’s rising tide has not lifted the boats of the poor.” Mr. Buffett goes on to acknowledge that the innovations from the Sam Walton and the Steve Jobs of the world have changed how we live, and does not believe that they are not undeserving of their wealth. However, he tends to believe that these innovations are significant contributors to the widening gap as a consequence of the U.S. shift from an agrarian-based economy to a technology-based one. http://www.wsj.com/articles/better-than-raising-the-minimum-wage-1432249927 I'm more interested in knowing how many large corporations you have either run/advised/directed/or was a member of the boards of? Of those, how many did you advise or vote to reduce CEO/your own pay? How long did you serve for each of those large corporations giving that advice? Did you consider yourself overpaid then? Now? Would you consider the demands of the uninformed/those outside your field and do not know the intricacies of your job, that you are overpaid and that you should lower your wages?

An assumption. The business model that has been in place for many years would argue against it.

It's all being done with a wink and a smile.

That is exactly what it says. that doesn't seem to be a viable business model. In addition to being such a "cultural" change, I'm curious in how certain dynamics may change. For example, it will be interesting if there will be less focus by servers on turning the table for the next customer (since over a work day tips would tend to reward volume of customers served). From an anecdotal standpoint, when I'm working with our Europeans that come to the U.S. for development assignments one of the recurring comments on restaurants tend to be on how much more relaxed dining is in Europe compared to the focus here on moving customers in and out quickly with one of the key differences being the European restaurants referenced have no tipping. In an interview on CNBC the other day a restaurant owner (Danny Meyer) of several high end restaurants said he is eliminating tipping, and raising menu prices by 19%, and raising the wages of all, including the kitchen workers, who normally get no share of tips.Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk IMO, this should be the standard for the reasons stated above by experienced restaurant staff. What is not clear is if he raised wages at the same rate he raised prices. I would be interested in more details.

That is exactly what it says. that doesn't seem to be a viable business model.

Is it an initiation ritual that new members have to come up with a spiffy new pithy quip to impress the 'oldtimers?' I didn't get that memo. Wait...that one has already been used before too. Dang. I guess I'm destined to disappoint.

And what are we faced with today?

My vote does not and never has condoned illegal activities.

By that logic, I also gave permission for high ranking officials to set up private servers to store classified information where it could/probably was, compromised; I'm also culpable for the Nixon tapes. Sue me.

Me too. And I'm sure many, many others in these forums also, as it seems more prevalent these last decades. Is it too much to ask that the authority tasked with no other duty more sacred than to protect the people, protect the people? You may not have an issue with your local water authority adding stuff to your water without your knowledge, but I sure would. Especially if what they are adding isn't necessarily good for me. Concentrations too small to worry about? Who gave them the right to make that call for me? And my anti-perspirant? I'm not drinking that.

Those fees are... Oh my. Just....oh my.

Sounds like somebody needs to have a meeting. Thanks for the clarity. I'll just continue to steer clear to keep from having to deal with inconsistencies.

You figure that out all by yourself son? And I'm not a son. Consider yourself informed.

You aren't helping me. We are off topic. I'll figure it out some other way.

Interesting. Because Politics is one of my favorite subjects. I use other sites for that though. Nice to know I can start a thread here though.

No. Really. I read the TOS prior to joining. Am I to understand they are not taken seriously here? That any topic is open for discussion? I'm confused.

What an odd place.

Good way to get this thread locked if that's your goal. Oh jesus do you really mean that? I'm fairly new. When it says 'no religion' in the TOS, does that mean we get to talk about religion?

You keep quoting/linking to zerohedge, what's up with that?Now if that robot will drop it in an autonomus vehicle and deliver it to your door you will really have something. I do? I guess the article was relevant to this topic. Besides, 4 posts up from yours is a link to a different site. I linked that one because it was relevant to what Oldtimer had posted. And I think you should keep your idea quiet lest someone steal it and make it a reality. Google or Amazon comes to mind. DRONEBURGER. Yes you do. https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/160218-do-you-know-someone-with-cancer/?fromsearch=1 Hmm...so by my count, I've got two links to zerohedge and several more to other sites. All of them relevant to the topics. I've either got an admirer or a stalker. Which is it? Wait, don't answer. I don't care. Let's stay on topic.