Why are taxes such an issue?

[MysticMiner]

Indeed, corporations do make money based on the labor of their workers, and the environment in which they operate is heavily sustained by the government. Copyright, trademark and patent laws are one obvious part, but the whole infrastructure is the foundation on which they operate.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Actually, yes "we" are entitled because the corporations make money through "our" labor and they don't pay "us" enough for it (if they did there would be no debate on healthcare and educational reform since everyone with a job could pay for these services), not to mention the tax loopholes, tax cuts, government contracts and subsidies corporations receive, they also benefit disproportionally off public infrastructure, the courts and the police force. Americans get a bad deal: they get much less out of every hour they work than people in any other developed nation, all Americans except for the rich, they are better off in America than anywhere else in the developed world. But by all means, go ahead and continue believin that a few lazy slobs abusing the system for $5k a year cause more damage than corporate fat cats and inside traders embezzling many millions...

yes "we" are entitled because the corporations make money through "our" labor and they don't pay "us" enough for it

How are you entitled to it...who are you to be telling your employer how he pays you. You must strongly oppose freedom then. I see...

 

[Reynod]

I am watching GFC 2 unfold over the last 24 hrs.

It will be interesting how many of you change your opinion about welfare principles and unions when your either fired or your work is outsourced to a foreign country where slave labour is encouraged ... whether state owned (China) or not (India et. al.)

During a financial crisis it is amazing how nationalism and fascism emerges ... like bubbles of sulphur rise through the magma to burst on the surface leaving a yellow stain momentarily ... and a fould odour.

 

[Gulli]

yes "we" are entitled because the corporations make money through "our" labor and they don't pay "us" enough for it

How are you entitled to it...who are you to be telling your employer how he pays you. You must strongly oppose freedom then. I see...

Who is my employer to tell me I can't have any say in how he pays me? Doesn't the freedom of employee's to influence their own lives (through unions and an elected government, which have the authority to negotiate with and create rules for corporations) count as a freedom too (and remember there are more emplyees than employers and this piece of freedom impacts the lives of employees more, so I guess it must be you who is against freedom)? Really, your argument sounds like what the slaveowners used to say: "They be takin away our freedom to own slaves!" I trust I don't have to explain the fallacy in their argument.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Who is my employer to tell me I can't have any say in how he pays me? Doesn't the freedom of employee's to influence their own lives (through unions and an elected government, which have the authority to negotiate with and create rules for corporations) count as a freedom too (and remember there are more emplyees than employers and this piece of freedom impacts the lives of employees more, so I guess it must be you who is against freedom)? Really, your argument sounds like what the slaveowners used to say: "They be takin away our freedom to own slaves!" I trust I don't have to explain the fallacy in their argument.

Stop being delusional, you cannot tell your employer what to pay you...he decides...if you don't like it, go work for somebody else.

If a contractor comes to my house and wants to do a job and charge me $100 per hour, and I say no, I want to give him $50...he cannot tell me he wants $100, because then I'll just say, leave and I'll find another contractor.

Your system isn't it how it works in reality.

 

[MysticMiner]

And then the next contractor says it'll be 150.

Or they say it'll be 50, but then they do work that causes things to be worse, so you end up getting the 100 dollar guy back, and paying him double what you would have in the first place.

Reality is there's tension on both ends, or somebody gets screwed.

 

[blackhawk1928]

And then the next contractor says it'll be 150.

Or they say it'll be 50, but then they do work that causes things to be worse, so you end up getting the 100 dollar guy back, and paying him double what you would have in the first place.

Reality is there's tension on both ends, or somebody gets screwed.

You are missing the point. The point is that its my choice which contractor to choose and my choice how much I want to pay him, if he doesn't like he can work for some other guy...its freedom.

If he cannot tell me how much I have to pay him, because If I don't like it, then I won't hire him.

So everything gulli says makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Gulli]

Stop being delusional, you cannot tell your employer what to pay you...he decides...if you don't like it, go work for somebody else.

If a contractor comes to my house and wants to do a job and charge me $100 per hour, and I say no, I want to give him $50...he cannot tell me he wants $100, because then I'll just say, leave and I'll find another contractor.

Your system isn't it how it works in reality.

No, that's not how it works: first you will have to pay him at least minimum wage, so there's the first bit of interference with your "freedom to exploit", then you have to figure you need a job done so you need to find at least one contractor willing to do the job, if they all turn your offer down you will have to change your offer. On the other hand the contractors need to put food on the table and are generally less paychecks away from starvation than you, the (potential) employer are, so they will have to cave in to a reasonable offer from you at some point (though unions will support him to hold out longer). In the end you will meet halfway. Employers use their larger financial reserves, threats to move abroad or import workers from abroad, expensive all-star lawyer teams, and large (per capita) political clout as weapons, while employees use unions, threats of strikes and their larger numbers (they have less political clout per capita, but they have more capitas).

If employers could set wages all on their own the median wage would be something like $200 a month and most employees would be living in the squalid conditions of 19th century Western factory workers or 21st century Indian factory workers, and that's assuming slavery would have been abolished... And oh yeah, weekends and holidays would not exist and the workweek would be something like 72 hours.

 

[MysticMiner]

^^

I think you are missing the point, which is that there's choice on both sides. The contractor will tell you how much he wants, if you don't offer enough, he won't work for you.

Gulli is making a lot more sense than your one-sided focus is. As I said, it's necessary for their to be tension on both ends, which is accomplished in a variety of ways.

^

Don't forget the scrip that is only valid in the company store.

 

[brentkhack]

If employers set there own wages people have the choice to not work there. And if they evil company's do not have employees then no work id done which means no income. So there is SOME type of balance with work done to wages earned. Also, nobody thinks they get paid enough no matter what job and what wages are earned. If contractors price them out of a job and they are starving somehow that is my fault? So fast food cashiers are starving so lets unionize them and pay them $25 an hour since some think they are entitled to that.

 

[MysticMiner]

Silly strawmen about cashiers do not invalidate the point, which is that a given person is entitled to set a value for their labor.

You're the one who expressed outrage over a person telling an employer how they wanted to be paid.

People do have a right to that, and some do exercise it, and sometimes they get paid better for it, sometimes they don't, and find a new job, which may make them happy and satisfied about how much they are paid, it may not, but I doubt the ones who have no say, who can do nothing, are better off.

And FWIW, unsatisfied and unhappy cashiers may not want 25 dollars an hour. They may just want a rest break, or a cushioned place to stand, or even a place to sit now and then. Coming up with excessive demands does not mean all demands are necessarily excessive.

 

[brentkhack]

By law they do get a break. If the job requires them to stand up all day and they accept the job and pay, so where is the problem. The people are entitled to get the paid for the work they do including the rate they agreed to.

 

[MysticMiner]

Well, yes, people are entitled to get paid for the work they do. That's the point.

However in many places, they do have a right to change their mind, and are not beholden to work. Depending on the circumstances, they may even have a legal right to more pay. There are reasons for that. Just as there are reasons why those laws about breaks were written.

And sometimes the laws aren't adequate on their own.

 

[Gulli]

By law they do get a break. If the job requires them to stand up all day and they accept the job and pay, so where is the problem. The people are entitled to get the paid for the work they do including the rate they agreed to.

They get a break because they fought for it through unions and their votes, this is exactly what I mean by saying employees do have a say in how employers treat and pay them. Basically you admit this yourself when you say "[...] the rate they AGREED to". Agreeing as in both parties having a say in the negotiations instead of one party just shoving a "take it or starve to death" down the other party's throat.

Btw, even if someone voluntarily agrees to work for less than minimum wage, his employer is still in violation of the law if he does actually pay less than minimum wage. This prevents employers from preying on the weak and desperate and subsequently lowering the salary/benefits bar for all employees: since employers would know they can find a weak or desperate individual willing to work for less they could refuse any applicant who demands a certain standard, effectively making working for less than this standard the norm and hence removing the voluntary aspect of working for less than the standard (you'll have to "agree" to work for less if you want a job). So what seems voluntary at first glance really isn't in the end.

 

[brentkhack]

Who has the legal right to more pay outside of minimum wages?

 

[MysticMiner]

Anybody who works overtime. Exact rules for that vary. Anybody who has a contract guaranteeing them more pay. The latter includes military personnel and politicians.

 

[brentkhack]

If by law or contract they are suppose to get paid more , then there is no argument. But you were saying that people accept a job position and pay (lower then they want) and they are intitled to more pay, that is a problem. Kinda like the NFL lockout. If the players do not like their pay, leave and play in the CFL. The players know what the life of a football will be like and then all of a sudden they have a problem. They do not need to tell the owners they make.too much money.

 

[brentkhack]

I think not a one of ya have ever had to meet a payroll in your life.

It sounds like your reading from a textbook Gulli.

Not sure if u was talking about me, but once a week I do payroll for a home health agency. If a nurse wants more pay than we pay, we do not hire them. So it isnt a take it or starve to death if they overpriced their value. They also need to look at their own personnal spending habits to see why they might be starving.

 

[Gulli]

If by law or contract they are suppose to get paid more , then there is no argument. But you were saying that people accept a job position and pay (lower then they want) and they are intitled to more pay, that is a problem. Kinda like the NFL lockout. If the players do not like their pay, leave and play in the CFL. The players know what the life of a football will be like and then all of a sudden they have a problem. They do not need to tell the owners they make.too much money.

You have to see the bigger picture: for various reasons (such as the state of your country's comptetiviness in the world) a deal can be made between employers and employees that encompasses more than just salary. Employees can agree to fairly low wages if the employers promise to pay extra taxes or premiums to fund social programs that will end up benefitting the employees in the end. This is a social contract that sometimes benefits both groups more than a simpler agreement to just pay the employees higher wages, but without the social programs (for example it is often cheaper to buy health insurance collectively than have every employee do it individually off their own paycheck).

 

[MysticMiner]

Um, Gulli isn't saying what you think. The reply is to somebody who expressed outrage over the concept of negotiating wages. Who is still expressing that idea.

 

[Gulli]

Not sure if u was talking about me, but once a week I do payroll for a home health agency. If a nurse wants more pay than we pay, we do not hire them. So it isnt a take it or starve to death if they overpriced their value. They also need to look at their own personnal spending habits to see why they might be starving.

It's not what you're manager chooses to pay the nurses: it's what the manager agreed to after painstaking negotiations with one or more unions representing the nurses.

 

[Gulli]

We have the freedom to negotiate our wages in this country Gulli. Just as I have done for every job i've ever had other than my very first. So much of what you think you know just isn't so.

You have the freedom to negotiate ABOVE a certain absolute standard. This absolute standard can be minimum wage and legal requirements or something that has been negotiated by unions, depending on whether you're a freelancer or not.

 

[brentkhack]

You have to see the bigger picture: for various reasons (such as the state of your country's comptetiviness in the world) a deal can be made between employers and employees that encompasses more than just salary. Employees can agree to fairly low wages if the employers promise to pay extra taxes or premiums to fund social programs that will end up benefitting the employees in the end. This is a social contract that sometimes benefits both groups more than a simpler agreement to just pay the employees higher wages, but without the social programs (for example it is often cheaper to buy health insurance collectively than have every employee do it individually off their own paycheck).

I do understand the total cost of having an employee outside of juat salary. But as that goes up our global competitiveness goes down.

 

[Reynod]

Yes Gulli ... spot on.

My boss tried to screw me over on overtime he owed me last year for services rendered ... he payed me at the wrong rate for 12 mths.

I went through his payroll reports (as is my right) and found he not only underpaid me, but also 11 other staff.

I wrote a report detailing all of this to HR, and copied in my union rep.

I received backpay, and all of the 11 staff were backpaid as well.

He wasn't a happy chap ... never discussed it again.

We have an EBA ...

 

[MysticMiner]

^^

OTOH, as wages go up, so does cash for spending. Underpaid workers are bad for an economy too.