Why are taxes such an issue?

[Gulli]

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

The whole idea IS to keep the the total cost as low as possible while maintaining a decent standard of living for the employees. I think I explained this already.

 

[blackhawk1928]

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.

I know you need to pay minimum wage, but he isn't entitled to any more. And if he doesn't like the price I pay him, he can leave...you are acting as if he can forcefully work for me, you are wayyyy to far from reality.

^^

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.

Exactly, so you agree with me 100%. There is choice, you either take what your employer has to offer or leave it

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.

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.

Unions?...you mean the ones that make it so that garbage collectors make more money than lawyers? Or do you mean the ones who let teachers take 3months off in a 9month school year and not teach, but still be hired. Oh you must mean the unions where the employee tells the employer how much to pay him and doesn't give the employer the freedom to fire him. Slavery?

Saying you have freedom to tell your employer what to pay you is just like saying you have the freedom to kill somebody...freedom means that YOUR freedom cannot take away somebody elses right/freedom. If an employer tells an employee his pay, thats true freedom. If an employee is telling his employer what to pay him, thats not freedom...because the employee is taking his employers freedom.

You must strongly favor a totalitarian dictatorship with no freedoms based on your absolutely unrealistic views.

 

[MysticMiner]

^^The minimum wage in the US certainly may not be a living wage on its own**/. But where exactly did Gulli make any kind of statement about education levels?


^

No, we are not saying the same things. You are giving 100% of the power in one direction, and expressing outrage about it in the other direction. The reality is the worker does have rights. And sometimes they express those rights through unity with others. And yes, sometimes your rights do include telling others what you want from them, if they want anything from you. See, that's the one-sided perspective I'm talking about, you are acting like the employer is being coerced by the employee saying what pay and treatment he wants, but not at all considering that the same thing happens if the employer does not give the employee consideration.

Also, garbage men do much more productive work than lawyers, they're valuable contributors to society. Even Shakespeare knew that the lawyers were trouble. And firing an employee is something that can be abused, which is why Unions DO fight for restrictions and terms under what conditions employment can be terminated. Did you not think of that? Or do you not realize how your own unrealistic views lead to a tyrannical corporate oligarchy?

 

[Gulli]

The only people making minimum wage in the US is a teenager still living at home with his parents working his very first job. The minimum wage here does not mean the same thing as in Europe. The minimum wage is a starting wage for someone who has never worked before in their lives, with no skills or experience.

Job training when I was growing up was called high school. If you sucked at math you took woodworking, or metal shop and learned a trade, a skill. Something you could market to the demand.

You are talking out of your arse again Gulli. You are swallowing the crap your professors are teaching you and thinking we can all be academic intellectuals, sitting around getting paid to just think *** up.

How does most people earning more than minimum wage dispute anything I've said so far? And please, stop telling me I'm talking out of my ass because usually that ends with me providing prove and you remaining silent on that subject from then one (like with that IRS link I provided that proves businesses can deduct salaries). How many more times do you wanna go at it with the same result? Btw, I study physics, my professors don't lecture about economics, I'm entirely self-taught in that aspect.

 

[brentkhack]

The whole idea IS to keep the the total cost as low as possible while maintaining a decent standard of living for the employees. I think I explained this already.

Who gets to decide what a decent standard of living means?

 

[MysticMiner]

Depends on what is meant, it can be a sense of the poverty line based on thing like the CPI, or it can be a personal standard.

It's not a hard and fast number, even the statistical ones, but an evolving one.

 

[Gulli]

Who gets to decide what a decent standard of living means?

The employers, the unions, the elected government and the courts slug it out until a compromise is reached. It works most of the time, not always (sometimes the balance gets skewed too much in one direction), but it's better than all known alternatives. Like MysticMiner says it is a continuous process because the world and the economy keep changing.

 

[brentkhack]

It isnt a one direction of power. An potential employer can say F U if they dont like the demands being offered. Same thing with a potential employee. They will say F U to the company and take their skills with them. It is balanced. Both the business and laborer will make changes of their demands if they keep on either not being able to hire someone (due to low compensation package) or person wont be hired (due to high compensation package requirement). So in the end there is SOME type of balance.

 

[MysticMiner]

That is the ideal, yes.

Reality may be more complicated, which is why there are ways to level the playfield.

 

[brentkhack]

The employers, the unions, the elected government and the courts slug it out until a compromise is reached. It works most of the time, not always (sometimes the balance gets skewed too much in one direction), but it's better than all known alternatives. Like MysticMiner says it is a continuous process because the world and the economy keep changing.

Would u say it does get skewed in both directions?

 

[brentkhack]

That is the ideal, yes.

Reality may be more complicated, which is why there are ways to level the playfield.

May be more complicated, maybe not.

 

[brentkhack]

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 ...

As much as I do not agree with unions, but your boss is a scumbag. I would go as far as saying the 12 of you should get some type of compensation for the year you went without the pay.

 

[MysticMiner]

You're not talking about the same things the rest of us were, but going off on an entirely different tangent.

 

[christop]

anwaypasible


i know why.
because people look at their check and see how much money is there..
then they start to daydream the thought 'what if this check had $50 extra'

50 bucks! You must make minimum wage. Try 200 or 300.

 

[brentkhack]

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...

If you add up ALL the benefits these people get per year, it is around $20k per person. Not bad for doing nothing. And more than a few people do this.

 

[blackhawk1928]

If you add up ALL the benefits these people get per year, it is around $20k per person. Not bad for doing nothing. And more than a few people do this.

I agree, plus those corporate *fatcats* actually pay millions in taxes thereby paying for themselves to use what the system provides. The people on welfare thier whole lives taking advantage of the system on the other hand literally do nothing to make the country better...they just kill it.

 

[MysticMiner]

And because some people are criminals, we must not have nice things!

Or maybe they'd still be criminals, just in different ways. I don't see it as a net gain.

 

[brentkhack]

I work for a living, unlike the 47% of americans who vote for a living.

 

[MysticMiner]

Ah, that old myth. Try learning about them. If all the wealth in America was boiled down to 100 pennies, that 47% would share a bit less than 3 of them. And no, you don't know how much they work, not enough to make blanket statements about them.

 

[brentkhack]

Work not enough to pay taxes. That isnt a myth, thats stats.

 

[brentkhack]

Yes, let me learn how to work just enough to not pay federal taxes, or not work at all.

 

[MysticMiner]

You claim stats? Ok, who has collected them on the attitudes and working habits of these people, to the point where you can make such a claim about them?

And they're doing this for a share of around 3 percent of the wealth, to be spread among how many people?

I think I'd be more concerned about other priorities.

 

[brentkhack]

Why would people who do not pay federal taxes care if the tax rate goes up? Common sense. Just ask the Jews that didnt care when the SS was taking their neighbors to camp Hitler until they came for them. If it doesnt effect them, who cares.

 

[brentkhack]

You claim stats? Ok, who has collected them on the attitudes and working habits of these people, to the point where you can make such a claim about them?

And they're doing this for a share of around 3 percent of the wealth, to be spread among how many people?

I think I'd be more concerned about other priorities.

How about they make their own money instead of waiting for others to make it for them. We have set up a system that rewards lazyness. Why would someone work if they make more money sitting at home? That needs to change. Make them uncomfortable in there living situation to make a difference in their life. That would be one of my priorities.

 

[MysticMiner]

You're still making broad assumptions about a large group of people. But you can only use the stick so far if you don't have a carrot. The problem for many people on the low end is that they don't have the opportunities to make more money, many of them are struggling just to get by from day to day. And no amount of stick will get a lame horse to run. Besides, the welfare laws do have provisions for getting people to work. Didn't I point that out to you already?

BTW, you don't seem to know it, but federal taxes do include more than just income taxes. There are payroll taxes which workers do pay, even the ones in the 47%, who despite your assumptions otherwise, are not all sitting on the couch doing nothing.