Re: Greed is good; envy is an economic driver : Sat Nov 30, 2013 8:57 pm  

Mintball wrote:

I don't disagree at all (not very effective DA stuff, then. ).

But all these companies need, say, cleaners.

Some of the most derided of the entire workforce, yet try operating without them. Anywhere the public actually visited – shops, restaurants etc – would go out of business before long. So just as with any other employee, the cleaner contributes to the success or otherwise of a business.

While a company the size of KPMG may not have many staff (including contracted staff) on less than the living wage, it's that attitude again of short-termism that exists on a wide scale in business (certainly in the UK) whereby any cost cutting is good, even if it's slashing wages (apart from management wages) or keeping people on poverty pay and allowing/expecting the taxpayer to make up the difference so that said employee is fit, fed and healthy enough to attend work, let alone actually be productive.

So even if it affects a small percentage of KPMG staff, what is particularly heartening is just a slight move away from thinking in such a short-term manner.

Maybe it's time those companies who do pay at least the Living Wage were encouraged to announce it on their letterheads? After all, plenty are eager to announce they are ISO 9001/2 or are "Investors in People" (biggest fooking joke accolade ever), or have won some other industry accreditation. Perhaps it is time for those who do pay the Living Wage to show up their competitors for the money-grabbing charlatons they are

Re: Greed is good; envy is an economic driver : Sun Dec 01, 2013 5:12 pm  

Mintball wrote:

In least I make responses.

Yes you have. You've done a routine of: 'I haven't had a pay rise for three years, in The Real World', so why should anyone else – particularly those in the public services, which are not The Real World anyway'. (I remember your being challenged particularly over the last bit of that: strangely, you never did respond to being asked whether you really thought that police and teachers and nurses etc didn't work in 'The Real World')

Yes. Of course there are. There are far more jobs available than people out of work – they're just too lazy and the stats are all a lie.

You've already been picked up for posting inaccurately about this.

But let's run with your explanation of why this is a good thing and why increased profits matter more than people. Do you have one?

And you sat there and applauded and told her this was the way The Real World works and jolly good it is too, because she is less important than Morrisons improving profits.

Yes. We know. The figures are a lie. You keep pretending this, but with no fact-based evidence to show it.

Nobody has said that it is. If, however, the company then says: 'oh, we're going to shaft some people because it isn't enough', then it's immoral.

I ask again: what pay should a "supposed socialist" get for what job?

Why pander to profitable companies, by, in one way or another, having the taxpayer subsidise their profits?

So do others. Y'know, work and things like that. You find time to comment when you want – and then appear selective when challenged.

Nobody more selective than you - so please climb down from 'holier than thou' horse.

Just because I say I haven't had a pay rise in many years doesn't mean I am bleating and don't not use that to suit your argument - I have a choice I can stay or I can find another job, nobody forces me to stay.

You have yet to prove the various taxes paid by say Morrisons is less than the total benefits paid to its staff due to the wages the company pays them - this is the point I am trying to make - the idea that the profits large companies make are underpinned by governments subsidises is a fallacy - and something you have yet to show any tangible proof of.

Why pander to profitable companies - without them the country would be in a very sorry state - and if you don't create an environment whereby they want to operate here some will take they business elsewhere. Take BP the biggest company in Britain by quite a way - operationally what is stopping them moving their HO to Ireland?

On Socialist and pay - my stance is this - they can earn what they want but don't pontificate about equality and fairness from on high its hypocritical and that is my point not how much they earn.

This idea that companies who look to make process/cost improvements are shafting the staff is typical left wing mumbo jumbo. Businesses cannot stand still if they do their dead in the water. Morrisons and wife are but one example - that is what happens out there. Perhaps from your vast experience of running large companies you have a blueprint whereby staff can get annual pay rises but the business stays the same and have the funds to repay investors and have money to invest? That is the answer to your why increased profits matter - without profits business cannot invest - without investment it will stagnate or die.

I never said there were more jobs than people out of work - so again please don't misquote me, seems you do a lot of that!! what I said was the idea that there are no jobs out their is a fallacy.

Now how about you answering a few questions?

What is a reasonable amount for a company to make
Why not replace employers NI with increases to the minimum wage?
Do you think it is acceptable for Unite employees to have a final salary scheme when the members funding it don't have the luxury of such a term of employment?

Re: Greed is good; envy is an economic driver : Sun Dec 01, 2013 6:22 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

... Just because I say I haven't had a pay rise in many years doesn't mean I am bleating ...

Of course not. Just posting that nobody else deserves one if you can't have one ... in "The Real World". That was a specific reference about those working in the public services. I remember that, when asked if you really didn't think that the police, nurses and teachers work in "The Real World", you didn't bother answering.

Mind, it's good to see you acknowledging that you have talked about your not having a pay rise, given that earlier you were claiming that you had not.

Sal Paradise wrote:

... and don't not use that to suit your argument - I have a choice I can stay or I can find another job, nobody forces me to stay...

Because there are zillions of jobs out there really and you could get one easily and your wife got one. The suggestion being that there isn't really a shortfall of jobs, if only people were like you.

Sal Paradise wrote:

... You have yet to prove the various taxes paid by say Morrisons is less than the total benefits paid to its staff due to the wages the company pays them - this is the point I am trying to make - the idea that the profits large companies make are underpinned by governments subsidises is a fallacy - and something you have yet to show any tangible proof of...

WTF?

So companies pay their taxes in order for the government to subsidise them paying wages that are too low for an employee to live on?

JesusFuckingHChrist.

Sal Paradise wrote:

Why pander to profitable companies - without them the country would be in a very sorry state -

It is.

We have rising numbers of foodbanks, the Red Cross are handing out food parcels, Save the Children is providing aid in the UK, disabled people are dying when their benefits are withdrawn because a profiteering bunch of arsewipes declares them fit for work, increasing numbers of people are finding themselves in debt just to live – and you don't think it's a "sorry state"?

Sal Paradise wrote:

and if you don't create an environment whereby they want to operate here some will take they business elsewhere. Take BP the biggest company in Britain by quite a way - operationally what is stopping them moving their HO to Ireland?

Ah. So give in to corporate blackmail, in other words? Nice.

Sal Paradise wrote:

... On Socialist and pay - my stance is this - they can earn what they want but don't pontificate about equality and fairness from on high its hypocritical and that is my point not how much they earn...

So, only a slave should have fought slavery? Only a black South African should have opposed apartheid?

How the fück do you reach a conclusion that someone is a hypocrite if they "pontificate about equality and fairness", from "on high", whateverthefuck that means.

Imagine: how dare someone have and voice empathy for anyone not doing as well as them themselves – it takes something pretty bloody imbecilic to turn that into something bad.

And since you were talking about what a "supposed socialist" earned – not about them being "on high", you're now trying to shift the goalposts. So stop it.

So, let's go back to what your "supposed socialist" should earn, now that your utterly stupid argument has been shown up for what it is: utterly stupid and devoid of an iota of intellectual credibility.

Sal Paradise wrote:

This idea that companies who look to make process/cost improvements are shafting the staff is typical left wing mumbo jumbo. Businesses cannot stand still if they do their dead in the water. Morrisons and wife are but one example - that is what happens out there. Perhaps from your vast experience of running large companies you have a blueprint whereby staff can get annual pay rises but the business stays the same and have the funds to repay investors and have money to invest? That is the answer to your why increased profits matter - without profits business cannot invest - without investment it will stagnate or die.

Well, to star with, get the effing City out of things, so that profitable companies are not punished, even when profitable, and chased into unsustainable, continual growth.

Sal Paradise wrote:

I never said there were more jobs than people out of work - so again please don't misquote me, seems you do a lot of that!! what I said was the idea that there are no jobs out their is a fallacy...

Ah, you just pretended it's easy to find work, 'if one really wants to'?

Sal Paradise wrote:

Now how about you answering a few questions?

Why? You don't answer questions. Well, not coherently. And you've ignored all the stuff about sustainability, the national economy etc.

Sal Paradise wrote:

What is a reasonable amount for a company to make...

Well that will really depend on the company, now won't it? Y'know: how long is a piece of string, 'n' all.

Sal Paradise wrote:

Why not replace employers NI with increases to the minimum wage?...

That's right – bribe bad employers with more tax breaks. Do you have a moral or ethical bone in your body? Do you remember all the threats of job losses when the minimum wage came in? Do you remember how they didn't happen? Have you paid any attention to how the living wage actually increases productivity etc?

Sal Paradise wrote:

Do you think it is acceptable for Unite employees to have a final salary scheme when the members funding it don't have the luxury of such a term of employment?

I've answered the final one already. You appear to 'think' that an organisation should not treat it's own staff as it says other companies should treat them, but that instead, it should be hypocritical. As I've suggested elsewhere, you don't actually know what hypocrisy means.

Now, you were going to tell us what a "supposed socialist" should earn.

Re: Greed is good; envy is an economic driver : Sun Dec 01, 2013 6:39 pm  

Oh look. He's gone again.

Re: Greed is good; envy is an economic driver : Sun Dec 01, 2013 6:50 pm  

Him wrote:

Oh look. He's gone again.

This is what really annoys me: people who do not or cannot defend their opinions (which they are, of course, entirely free to hold): people who then run away and only rematerialise to try to shift the goalposts or simply to come out with the same old soundbites, that they never back up, in another discussion.

They may be entirely genuine, but you have to ask what sort of mind refuses to even think about what they spout. I suppose that's how they manage to cope with such inconsistencies and problems such as not understanding what 'hypocrisy' actually means.

[DaveO]

Re: Greed is good; envy is an economic driver : Sun Dec 01, 2013 11:06 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

This idea that companies who look to make process/cost improvements are shafting the staff is typical left wing mumbo jumbo. Businesses cannot stand still if they do their dead in the water.

What absolute nonsense.

Standing still is exactly what they are doing.

Cost cutting to increase profit in this way (sending jobs abroad to low wage countries) is proof if ever there was that management has failed. They have to seek higher profits to keep the City happy and the only rouse they can think if is to sack UK staff and send their jobs elsewhere.

What they aren't doing is in producing more or charging less, it is simply about increasing profit. Their company also isn't growing its market to increase the profit. Most certainly stood still.

It is simply shafting its UK workforce to improve its bottom line. When profitable companies do this it is IMO unjustified and immoral.

The fact the City approves of this practice despite the short-termism of it just shows how broken and in need of regulation modern-day capitalism is.

Companies like Richer Sounds and Phones4u also show why you are talking tripe again with this "typical left wing mumbo jumbo" nonsense.

Morrisons and wife are but one example - that is what happens out there. Perhaps from your vast experience of running large companies you have a blueprint whereby staff can get annual pay rises but the business stays the same and have the funds to repay investors and have money to invest? That is the answer to your why increased profits matter - without profits business cannot invest - without investment it will stagnate or die.

Shoring up profit by sending jobs abroad is a one off cost saving exercise. If the companies don't produce more having done that then they are going to be unpopular soon enough with the City.