Another estimate suggests the price of a Big Mac would jump 5 cents, or 1 percent, if the minimum wage was raised to $10.50, according to a letter signed by 100 economists in favor of raising the U.S. minimum wage.
“McDonald’s could cover fully half of the cost increase by raising the price of a Big Mac, on average, from $4 to $4.05,” the letter said. “The remaining half of the adjustment could come through small productivity gains or a slightly more equal distribution of companies’ total revenues.”
Amy Traub, senior policy analyst with progressive public policy organization Demos, favors raising the minimum wage for larger economic reasons, explaining that when low-wage workers have more money in their pockets, they tend to spend it immediately.
I have zero problem with paying 68 cents more for a Big Mac.
Provided they make it taste of something. :whistle:
Then you shouldn't have a problem with increasing the minimum wage to, say, $30, should you? After all, that would only result in a measly increase of $1.36 in the cost of a big mac - and just imagine how much more economic activity there would be with all those service industry employees flush with all that new-found cash! It would be a virtuous cycle that lifted all boats!!!
Bit of a jump :laugh: I just wish they'd make Big Macs taste of something. They have a thing they call a Big Tasty here at the moment. Basically a bacon cheeseburger. I tried one and seriously thought about calling Trading Standards about false advertising.
You know as well as I that raising wages raises prices and you inevitably wind up with less spending power than you had before the wage increase. You are roughly my age - if I recall correctly - and have lived through at least 4 of those cycles so far, with the next one on the horizon.
At any rate, this is all about the unions finally (they hope) getting a foothold in the food industry.. they need this because their numbers keep dropping as more and more of their former jobs are being sent overseas for cheaper labor.Obama pretty much has crapped out heavy industry, so the unions representing coal miners, steelworkers, and the like are SOL. All that's left is SEIU, which already has a toehold on certain segments of the food service industry. I worked for one company where most of the cooks were SEIU-represented. What they got out of it was a top wage of $10 per hour (for people with many years' experience), some of which they then had to fork over for union dues. Thanks for nuttin'!
I have zero problem with paying 68 cents more for a Big Mac.
Provided they make it taste of something. :whistle:
Plus.....doubling the minimum wage doesn't translate into ALL that increase going into the employee's pocket as additional discretionary spending.
The withholding taxes and FICA taxes and state taxes will grab 'their share'.
Do any of these people realize what unions have done to the automobile industry or Detroit? Econ 101 should be taught in junior high school -- if such a thing still exists.
The other thing I notice about this "study" is that it assumes everything in the supply chain stays the same as well, which I doubt is the case. The meatpackers and farm hands that process the food before it gets sent to McD's and other fast-food chains are also relatively low-wage labor who would also be affected, thus driving prices upward even further.
Do any of these people realize what unions have done to the automobile industry or Detroit? Econ 101 should be taught in junior high school -- if such a thing still exists.
NUMMI proved otherwise.
NUMMI proved otherwise.
I thought the joint venture between Toyota and GM ended when GM pulled out and Toyota realized a unionized work force in California was not going to be successful--ie turn a profit.
Proved what "otherwise?"
That unions brought down the US auto industry and Detroit.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi
So NUMMI proves that unions did not bring down the US auto industry and Detroit?
NUMMI was GM's most profitable US plant. Quality and profitability were accomplished not by getting rid of the union, but by changing management style.
Plus.....doubling the minimum wage doesn't translate into ALL that increase going into the employee's pocket as additional discretionary spending.
The withholding taxes and FICA taxes and state taxes will grab 'their share'.
Nope, the union had nothing to do with the plant closing.
Toyota is once again involved with NUMMI, this time collaborating with Tesla.
So it's still going strong, right? If it's firing on all cylinders, why get rid of it? Or maybe it was just the token, the hothouse orchid, set up to masquerade for a system that, overall, is too dysfunctional to survive.
Is management part of the problem? Of course. However, unions were given the driver's seat with the NLRA and the government's thumb on their side of the scales, so management adapted to unions, not the other way 'round, meaning that, contra your assertion, unions and unionization are, in fact, the primary cause of most failed industrial businesses.
Toyota came in with their own processes and automation so NUMMI worked with that as a starting point. For the old guard auto companies, the unions were still fighting to retain processes and technology decades out of date. They fought against production innovation and efficiency programs. Toyota had a foot up by starting with an efficient process system so they were less impacted.
And yet employees at the NUMMI plant were unionized. It is long past time to stop blaming unions for everything and take a look at the other side.
The union has already made big concessions. The 2007 labor contract with GM transferred health-care costs from the company to a union-run plan and set up a lower wage structure for new hires. The company is asking for more because it has no other choice given the devastating drop in sales.
As Roger Lowenstein describes in his book While America Aged, it was the remarkable UAW president Walter Reuther (1907-70) who won womb-to-tomb health-care coverage and retirement benefits for the rank and file. Reuther was an early advocate of universal health-care coverage, which was not going to fly in Washington. So he willingly traded small pay raises for deferred compensation in the form of pensions and retirement health care. The Big Three gladly signed on because the trade-off held down cash wages — and because they were lushly profitable companies, controlling 90% of the U.S. car market. Executives never conceived of a day they might run out of money.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1882376,00.html#ixzz2bIVegUAB
And this *MUST* be true, because TIME magazine says so.
A Frenchman, who had just bought a business in California, was telling me that he had signed a contract with a California manufacturer to produce products for him. Having believed in the popular wisdom that manufacturing in the US, and particularly in California, was a losing proposition, I was genuinely shocked. He said "of course he could manufacture in California and make a profit", that wasn't the question - how much profit was enough, was the question. He said "Americans can make anything", then launched into a rant about American's disloyalty to their fellow citizens, and to the country itself.
The Frenchman is correct. I am old enough to remember before NAFTA and outsourcing to Mexico or China or Indonesia. When the CEO of the Fortune 500 companies were paid a salary with a year end bonus -- but those bonuses were not in the millions of dollars, they were within reason. Most lived in nice homes, not lavish or extravagant homes. Heck back then even Hollywood stars had what would be considered a shack today in Malibu for weekend vacations and nice, but not thousands of square feet homes in Bel Air or Beverly Hills... then along came Jack Welch and GE and outsourcing to China and telling other companies - you want to do business with GE you have to follow suit... starting under Reagan late in his second term, placed on steroids by GHWB and then Clinton... and then there came the Hedge Funds, they originated at a smaller degree in the 20's, amped up a bit in the late 40's, then went quiet in the big recession of the late 60's - earl;y 70's (thank you Richard Nixon /s) and then in the 90's went full tilt.... the started including credit arbitrage, distressed debt, fixed income, pension and endowment funds and more and more portfolios went into the Hedge Funds.......and... the Romney graduating class from Harvard was on the forefront of all of this... many people - like Romney became wildly rich while the middle class of this country has slowly, but surely, been eroding as a result of it....
The Frenchman is correct. I am old enough to remember before NAFTA and outsourcing to Mexico or China or Indonesia. When the CEO of the Fortune 500 companies were paid a salary with a year end bonus -- but those bonuses were not in the millions of dollars, they were within reason. Most lived in nice homes, not lavish or extravagant homes. Heck back then even Hollywood stars had what would be considered a shack today in Malibu for weekend vacations and nice, but not thousands of square feet homes in Bel Air or Beverly Hills... then along came Jack Welch and GE and outsourcing to China and telling other companies - you want to do business with GE you have to follow suit... starting under Reagan late in his second term, placed on steroids by GHWB and then Clinton... and then there came the Hedge Funds, they originated at a smaller degree in the 20's, amped up a bit in the late 40's, then went quiet in the big recession of the late 60's - earl;y 70's (thank you Richard Nixon /s) and then in the 90's went full tilt.... the started including credit arbitrage, distressed debt, fixed income, pension and endowment funds and more and more portfolios went into the Hedge Funds.......and... the Romney graduating class from Harvard was on the forefront of all of this... many people - like Romney became wildly rich while the middle class of this country has slowly, but surely, been eroding as a result of it....
The Frenchman is correct. I am old enough to remember before NAFTA and outsourcing to Mexico or China or Indonesia. When the CEO of the Fortune 500 companies were paid a salary with a year end bonus -- but those bonuses were not in the millions of dollars, they were within reason. Most lived in nice homes, not lavish or extravagant homes. Heck back then even Hollywood stars had what would be considered a shack today in Malibu for weekend vacations and nice, but not thousands of square feet homes in Bel Air or Beverly Hills... then along came Jack Welch and GE and outsourcing to China and telling other companies - you want to do business with GE you have to follow suit... starting under Reagan late in his second term, placed on steroids by GHWB and then Clinton... and then there came the Hedge Funds, they originated at a smaller degree in the 20's, amped up a bit in the late 40's, then went quiet in the big recession of the late 60's - earl;y 70's (thank you Richard Nixon /s) and then in the 90's went full tilt.... the started including credit arbitrage, distressed debt, fixed income, pension and endowment funds and more and more portfolios went into the Hedge Funds.......and... the Romney graduating class from Harvard was on the forefront of all of this... many people - like Romney became wildly rich while the middle class of this country has slowly, but surely, been eroding as a result of it....
But still, let's string the argument along a little and throw in that fave bogie man, economic necessity: the argument goes that people have to have some sort of work to pay their living expenses (true enough) and so these companies, knowing that, effectively indenture their employees to their service by paying them just enough to survive on, but not enough to do any better because the alternative is getting fired and having nothing.
Thank you for your (as always) extremely thought provoking response. One point:
I know you partially addressed it in the next paragraph, but one thing you have not considered in your summation. It is many times harder to get a job once you are unemployed than it is while you are employed, and unemployment compensation will not cover that gap.
You are employed and wish move jobs - you are valuable and worth paying a bit more for. Unemployed, and your new employer is taking a risk that you are unemployed for a very good reason. Been downsized from a previous job? The alarm bells really start to go off.
Is is possible that the whole idea is historical and has just carried on? After all, the original factory / mine workers were not exactly treated well or paid well for their work.
The "Greedy bosses, downtrodden workers" idea that seems to be the core of this discussion.
:beer:
My thanks, as always. There is something that seems not to have been addressed - but for the life of me I can't work out what it is in a coherent form, so slightly rambling and disjointed ahead!
I am sticking on the whole idea of fair. Who decides what a fair pay for a fair days work is? To stick with fast food - standing at a hot grill and having 90 seconds to produce a perfect and often customised burger is a painful thing. Yet in a fast food joint, no one is going to pay more than $5 for a burger and side. Even with the bulk purchasing power of a big chain, there isn't much profit margin.
This is what is screwing me up. What, exactly, is fair?
So now there's something fundamentally wrong/suspect about free market economics, eh? Are you really going to let yourself be led down that rosy little path?
The erosion of the middle class has precious little to do with actual free market economics, BTW.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. Thomas Jefferson
So now we're going to start delving into the mythical fantasy world of price-gouging and wage-slavery, are we?
What's sorely lacking here is any real analysis of why this is the current state of affairs. First off, let's dismiss any fantasies of price-gouging; the US is, at least for the time being, still a free market economy and - other than health insurance - we generally aren't forced to buy too many products and - with some notable exceptions - the governments (federal or state) don't generally engage in rampant price-setting. It therefore necessarily follows that the revenues these companies earn - and it is, after all, from revenues whence floweth the compensation of CEOs - is a fair measure of the real market value of the goods or services these companies sell. In other words, these companies haven't been "stealing" or price-gouging, they've simply been selling goods and services at prices people are voluntarily willing to pay.
Therefore, these companies' revenues are for the most part legitimately earned.
Now let's move on to the mythical land of wage-slavery. Are these companies really abusing the people who choose to work for them, paying them subpar wages? So far as I know, people in the US are still free to come and go as they please and to work, or not work, for whomever will hire them, which means that if the employees at these companies are dissatisfied with their pay they are free to find better paying jobs. As such, the claim that these companies are abusing their employees by paying subpar wages is rather weak. But still, let's string the argument along a little and throw in that fave bogie man, economic necessity: the argument goes that people have to have some sort of work to pay their living expenses (true enough) and so these companies, knowing that, effectively indenture their employees to their service by paying them just enough to survive on, but not enough to do any better because the alternative is getting fired and having nothing.
Your point being? (granting you the benefit of the doubt that you might actually have a point).
Meaning that the Frenchman was correct.
By and large, American corporations have abandoned the American worker.
* * *
When employers can import cheap labor, and export jobs to cheap labor third world countries the law of supply and demand has been nullified.
Silverhair, I "suspect" you are probably closer to my age and like myself you have seen the before and the after in this country. Heck I remember when the founder/CEO of our fortune 500 Orange County, CA company actually used to go around handing out paychecks so he could maintain a certain amount of contact with his employees... over the years the unions tried really hard to break into the company and each time was voted down resoundingly... we didn't make "union" wages, but the benefits were always generous - health care, good vacation policy, everyone got a yearly bonus - some more than others, based on performance - we also had a good company social system with everything from a ski club to women's club, bowling club, golf club, etc., the company actually encouraged it because it created good morale.. today that same company is still a major corp, but the stories we retirees from there hear tells us it is nowhere near the company we all loved working for.. and BTW had a very low turnover rate... they also helped pay for furthering education and much more....... when one division was down they were usually carried until things turned around by another division - this changed when we were bought out (for a very short while) by SmithKline... After a couple of years of SK messing things up the founder re-purchased the company..... I worked for them at a very good time, would not want to work for them today...
Since when are businesses supposed to be charities, or play the role of in loco parens to grown adults? What you're babbling on about is nothing more than precisely the sort of class/caste social structure that those who founded the US fled - because they wanted the freedom to succeed - or fail - on their own merits - and smacks of noblesse oblige.
With all due respect, there is only one place where this sort of remark should be found, and that is DU - or some other place where liberals grunt and emote. I am ashamed that you would harbor that sort of sentiment.
You need to take some refresher courses in Econ 101. Milton Friedman - you do know who he is, don't you - wrote some books that would be rather edifying as well.
Really? Pray tell, what was the colonist's position on the East India Company (think Boston Tea Party)?
What role did corporations play in our early days as a nation? Under what rules did they operate?
What role did Hamilton think the government should play in the development of US industries?
Really? Pray tell, what was the colonist's position on the East India Company (think Boston Tea Party)?
What role did corporations play in our early days as a nation? Under what rules did they operate?
What role did Hamilton think the government should play in the development of US industries?
That is pretty harsh, O just because you disagree with him...
There is a lot of excellent examples of men who came from humble roots and built substantial companies where they actually considered their employees as part of their success.... one was
Henry Ford
- he developed and manufactured the first automobile that many middle class Americans could afford to buy.
- he is credited with developing mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers.
- he believed consumerism was the key to peace.
- he was committed to using both technical and business innovations to keep costs down and product affordable...
- he started a franchise system to place Ford dealerships throughout the USA and most of the world...
- he designed the structure of his company to always have a "Ford" running the company so they would always remember where the company came from....
and Doctor Beckman -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Orville_Beckman
Doctor Beckman founded the company I retired from... he used to love to tell the story of he and Mabel, his wife, coming across country in his Model A and the tires kept failing, but they finally made it to California where with a degree and a shoestring he started what became a multi-national corporation......
While he was at Caltech they allowed him to do some outside consulting and he developed the pH Meter for Sunkist Corp and from this invention the company was formed in Pasadena, CA. Then he developed the Spectrophotometer as part of a top secret project for producing rubber during WWII.. Next in the mid-50's he established the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to fund Shockley's research into semiconductor technology. Shockley's aging mother lived in Palo Alto, Shockley established the laboratory in nearby Mountain View, California. Thus, Silicon Valley was born... and eventually the Palo Alto division of Beckman Instruments... creating even more jobs.... I don't remember the total number of employees we had world-wide at one point, but it was a lot of people with multiple divisions. I was in the Scientific instruments division. The main headquarters, until recently, remained in California and the lions-share of the employees were in the USA...
None of us considered our jobs there as charity. We all worked hard and loved where we worked and what we did... and without outsourcing all our jobs to China.
The Beckman Foundation has, to date, donated over $400 million to charity and organizations - much going to grants for science and engineering studies, they helped found a high school in his name in Irvine, He is also the namesake of the Beckman Institute, Beckman Auditorium, Beckman Laboratory of Behavioral Sciences, and Beckman Laboratory of Chemical Synthesis at the California Institute of Technology. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1985. In 1987, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1999, was also inducted into the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame in 1996. BTW he was a Republican... I think almost everyone was a Republican in that company....
And amazing he did all this keeping his company onshore... we were always working together, Accounting, Manufacturing, Engineering, etc., to come up with methods of reducing manufacturing cost and increasing productivity without cutting quality.. One of the things we developed right around the time I retired was the DNA sequencer... Beckman was on the leading technological edge in DNA development...one of the last products my husband - who was a Industrial/Graphic designer in the engineering department did was a cartoon slide show that explained what in the world DNA was...
Oh and I almost forgot. In my senior high school class to graduate we had to take and pass Econ 101 (I got an A). Our teacher, Mr. Clamp used to tell the class how stupid we were and that the holy grail of jobs in OC (at the time) was whether Beckman Instruments would hire you. Years later I always wanted to go back and tell him I made a career there.
At the time, workers could count on about $2.25 per day, for which they worked nine-hour shifts. It was pretty good money in those days, but the toll was too much for many to bear. Ford's turnover rate was very high. In 1913, Ford hired more than 52,000 men to keep a workforce of only 14,000. New workers required a costly break-in period, making matters worse for the company. Also, some men simply walked away from the line to quit and look for a job elsewhere. Then the line stopped and production of cars halted. The increased cost and delayed production kept Ford from selling his cars at the low price he wanted. Drastic measures were necessary if he was to keep up this production.
Hours upon hours of performing the same, mindless task was very difficult for the workers to accept. Morale was often low. Also, line work—due its quick pace and repetitive nature—was dangerous. In 1916, the Ford Highland Park plant recorded almost 200 severed fingers and more than 75,000 cuts, burns and puncture wounds.
To combat the high turnover and to boost morale, Henry Ford announced the famous "$5 a day" wage. It was actually a profit-sharing plan. (The bonus wage came with certain obligations to which the employee agree.) Nevertheless, Ford's plan doubled typical wages and sent shockwaves through the other car companies. They thought Ford was crazy and would soon go out of business. Ford knew, however, that this new deal would not only lower costs due to decreased turnover, but it would create more buyers of his cars: the employees themselves!
The $5-a-day rate was about half pay and half bonus. The bonus came with character requirements and was enforced by the Socialization Organization. This was a committee that would visit the employees’ homes to ensure that they were doing things the “American way.” They were supposed to avoid social ills such as gambling and drinking. They were to learn English, and many (primarily the recent immigrants) had to attend classes to become “Americanized.” Women were not eligible for the bonus unless they were single and supporting the family. Also, men were not eligible if their wives worked outside the home.
That is pretty harsh, O just because you disagree with him...
Slightly off topic, but I tried a McDonald's Chicken Wrap tonight. Pretty darn good!
No one here is preaching charity or paternalism. We are saying there is profits and there is greed and the country as a whole did a whole lot better when companies concentrated on profits. The greed did not start until the 80's when they started basing executive compensation of how much they could wring out of the company - that was the premise of Welch sending GE offshore. And frankly, as someone who has worked in industry and before and during the changes I am in a position to know the difference.. and as someone who ran the accounting department I know what the bottom lines were... the stockholders back then were pleased... the attitude you are taking here is like you SS attitude... you wanna see people who want handouts.. watch the special on Fox tonight those are the people you should be aiming your venom toward... and by the way when did you work for a major corporation?
And I oppose Obamacare because it is a mandatory GOVERNMENT-controlled program. Our company always provided us with topnotch health insurance. I have had health insurance since I was 18 years old. It was one of the benefits we received working for a GOOD employer.
For some reason you seem to think it is a good idea for companies to send all their labor offshore and undercut the wage base in this country. I don't agree.. and in fact more and more are finding ways to improve production so they can manufacture stateside, again.. Frankly there was a time made in the USA actually meant something - and I'm not speaking about the Union Label.
Since you are not old enough to have been around when CEO's actually worked for a salary instead of huge bonuses I don't think you have the slightest understanding of how the country actually functioned back then compared to now... Not to mention I don't remember you ever saying you worked for a large Fortune 500 Company... Aren't you a tax lawyer? and interesting that you view employees of companies the way you have stated here... we all work for someone, even those of us who are self-employed... because to be self-employed someone has to pay for our services, be it a large corporation where we receive a salary or self employment....
When one doesn't have an answer, one usually engages in evasion. I would suggest that you go re-read the recent post about that book from some democrat party activists about how to use emotion to win political battles; if you've an ounce of honesty you'll see your arguments here reflected in the tactics described in that book.
Now, let's get back to the task at hand: what is the difference between profits and greed? If it's so blindingly obvious, then it should be a piece of cake for you to educate me on the difference.
What is the difference between profits and greed?
When a company making a good ROV eliminates "labor" to the point they are wearing down the workers then it borders on greed.
When a company making a good ROV eliminates workers in the USA to send work elsewhere at basically slave wages (and yes I've seen the videos of the Chinese labor workers conditions) in order to maximize bonuses for the few at the top. that is greed.
When the entire operation is moved offshore to maximize ROV for stockholders I think that, too, is greed.
++++++++++++++++++++++
When Maytag moved their dishwasher operations from Ohio to Mexico because they could pay 50 cents and hour vs $15.00 an hour I remember saying at the time...okay, but when all the $15.00 an hour jobs are gone - who is going to be able to afford their dishwasher? As we can see fewer and fewer today CAN afford to buy those dishwashers... reason being the middle class is going away, we are quickly becoming Mexico in the USA with either wealthy or poor. So, yep, a lot of CEO's and stockholders have grown very rich, but at the same time the middle class is going, going gone.... as a COUNTRY we were better off when we were a balanced society and call me all the names you want, I think the thing that made us what we USED to be was a strong, viable, middle class... so I ask when only the rich can afford that dishwasher made in Mexico... what then?
So then you think Milton Friedman is the last word in economics? Nothing new to discover or learn? You do know that there are many schools of economic thought don't you?
Old Uncle Milty wrote Capitalism and Freedom, but his acolytes, the Chicago Boys, collaborated with the likes of Pinochet. Some say only a brutal dictator like Pinochet could have forced Freidman's economic reforms on Chile.
You are confusing "Profit motive" with greed. They are two different animals. Profit motive is about making money and growing the company Growing the company naturally increases stakeholder value.
If a company is in financial trouble then outsourcing will show favorable results for a very short term, long enough for the CEO's who implement this method of cost cutting to collect their golden parachute and make a quick exit before the deterioration resumes... remember those companies Romney and Bain did this to??? Romney grew rich the companies folded.
I do not agree with Obama... I think everyone should be able to earn as much as possible - as long as they earn it honestly. In earning it a "good" CEO recognizes the value of his labor force, hires good people and pays them accordingly, it is a win-win for everyone and for the country.. there is a finite difference.
To be a little more clear.......
A company has $100 million in sales
The company owns its factory
The company employees 200 people
This means the company has capital
Capital produces the product.
Product produces sales
The workforce is a talent pool
The company uses their talent pool to innovate
With innovation a company invests in technology.
Technology keeps the factory cutting edge
The cutting edge factory has material value.
Material value + capital value = enhanced stock value
Enhanced stock value = an asset to stockholders.
On the other hand:
The company that sells off its means of production
The company outsources manufacturing
Stakeholder value is now diminished in value
CEO's take their: contract guaranteed - bonuses and stock options
The CEO is the winner, the employees and stakeholders are the losers.
++++++++++++++++++++
If your motive is actually growing a business and accomplishing something you take door one, if your only motive is greed you take door two.
the difference between "Profits and Greed"?
'Profits' is the actual end result after EVERYBODY gets paid. It's tangible.
'Greed', on the other hand is subjective in nature.
But I suppose it would be considered 'greed' when the impression is that you're sitting on billions of dollars while the American family is in distress.
That said...I hope we all realize that the reason businesses are NOT expanding and rather sitting pat...is that they hope that the Obama nightmare will soon be over and Obamacare is flushed.
THAT'S the only thing holding this country back from a REAL boom. Companies are scared to death of government regulations and the Holder DOJ.
The only people doing well today are public employees and union members.....ironically because of "greed".
DC gets it! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
The only people doing well today are public employees and union members....
Why is cutting costs greed? And you still haven't answered the question: what is the difference between profits and greed? And who decides when cost-cutting goes from smart business into evil greed?"At a certain point I do think you've made enough money"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0JkyZx1LdQ
Sound familiar? It certainly does to me.
You know, I suppose to a degree it would be guided by a persons conscience. Speaking for myself, if I was a CEO making a very nice living, living in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood, able to take nice vacations, send my kids to private schools I think I would realize I did not get there in a vacuum, that the people who worked for me helped get me there and as a result I would want to treat them right, pay them well and keep them as good and loyal employees. But that is just me...
What you describe is the essence of the "rising tide that lifts all boats".
Never said I thought Uncle Milty was the last word in economics - you did. Why don't you try - just once - to put down an argument, rather than emotional rhetoric or false words?