Minimum wage, good or bad?

[jmjj215]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Generally, the turnover is fairly high because no human can do the work of 5 people, so they fire and hire and fire and hire. You and I know that's a stupid business model, just hire the people you need and you'll spend less training them, but that's a different line on the budget, so they excuse it.

And this is profitable to the company? I suppose going form 15 to 3 is. But do you evaluate other costs of having new IT employees that don't yet know the ropes, loss of productivity, etc. You said yourself that's a bad business model, which makes me think the company will correct it - no? Bad business models go out of business.

[dealsaver]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Social Security, child labor laws, and abortion? I think this thread is drifting off topic. Each of them deserve their own discussion.

[cercis]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Jesse, no they won't correct it because it is a different line on the budget.

Creative accounting is a huge issue right now. Training is a different budget line than compensation. And is taxed differently. And is generally handled by different managers. So, both managers are told to save money, the compensation manager says "let's lay off workers, if the remaining workers quit, great! we can hire a new grad and pay even less" the training manager says "I've got new employees, training costs can't really be reduced much, but we can give them less training".

I work with people who have clearly not been trained for their jobs. It seems like I provide a lot of training for new employees at other companies. I walk them through what prior employees did. It's very frustrating for me.

[VJW]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Jesse,

Execs could also argue that their services are worth 300 TIMES that.

They can “argue” anything, but what they cannot do is substantiate it

Explain how they can claim they are worth 20 to 25 times what their competition pays their CEOs.

My point is only that both sides can justify their wages.

Not with facts.

Bad business models go out of business.

Not with Corporate Welfare and crony capitalism from the current administration.

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[dealsaver]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Sure they can substantiate their compensation. Most CEO pay is linked to performance. US companies dominate many sectors of the global economy. Shareholders, board of directors, and management are happy to see their CEO's compensated dearly to maintain that advantage. Headlines will always be rightly made about compensation schemes that aren't linked to their company's well being. They make headlines because of their irregularity. Since most CEO compensation is based on performance, the facts(in other words the bottom line) do justify their wages. Conversely, there is no bottom line justification for the minimum wage where pay and performance have been decoupled from each other.

As for Corporate Welfare and crony capitalism, please differentiate the policies you attribute to the current administration from previous administrations. It would be interesting to see your analysis.

[VJW]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Sure they can substantiate their compensation.

No they can't.

Most CEO pay is linked to performance.

I’m afraid not.

Since most CEO compensation is based on performance, the facts(in other words the bottom line) do justify their wages.

Nope.

The data indicates otherwise. Some of the largest failures got some of the largest executive compensation.

Conversely, there is no bottom line justification for the minimum wage where pay and performance have been decoupled from each other.

By what evidence ?

As for Corporate Welfare and crony capitalism, please differentiate the policies you attribute to the current administration from previous administrations. It would be interesting to see your analysis.

Halliburton.

Need I say more ?

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[Dingoluv4eva]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Conversely, there is no bottom line justification for the minimum wage where pay and performance have been decoupled from each other.

LETS SAY U"RE RUNNING A MCDONALDS STAFF all getting paid minimum wage.

Using the theory of Differentiation.. where 10% of employees, the best performers, get perks, days off, free burgers to eat. longer breaks.. 70% are in the middle, they are told they perform well.. and some are sent the message they're close to making the top 10%.. and well the bottom 20% GET FIRED.. after a few weeks..

after a few months, of FIRING the worst employees, and if u are able to retain most of your best employees.

Your overall staff will improve in VALUE.. but no reason to give them a wage increase (unless u the manager wants to) ofcourse that will cut into your own budget, and will make your bonus lower at the end of the year. So why would u do a think like that.

[dealsaver]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

VJW said:

Need I say more ?

Not really. The data doesn't support your responses. There are number of studies on CEO pay which come to similar conclusions: CEO pay is highly responsive to their companies performance and poor performance adversely impacts their CEO's compensation. Pointing to exceptions to a rule does not a rule make.

As far as Haliburton and the Bush administration's record on Corporate Welfare and crony capitalism, the following is the record from two non-partisan public interest organizations as detailed by Micheal Tremoglie in Frontpage

EDIT: For those who prefer the short version of what follows: The Bush administration is actually doing a good job on combating corporate corruption and cronyism. Haliburton allegations were specious and made for political reasons.

FactCheck.org an organization which ascertains the validity of political campaign advertisements researched this accusation. According to FactCheck, "The Bush administration is doing a fair amount to fight corporate corruption, convicting or indicting executives of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, Worldcom, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, HealthSouth Corporation and others, including Martha Stewart. The Department of Justice says it has brought charges against 20 executives of Enron alone, and its Corporate Fraud Task Force says it has won convictions of more than 250 persons to date. Bush also signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in 2002, imposing stringent new accounting rules in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal."

When Factcheck.org checked the facts about allegations by Democrats that there was a scandal because of the "no-bid" contracts awarded to Halliburton they stated, "It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November." (Emphasis added.)

From The Center for Public Integrity:
In Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) has been awarded five contracts worth at least $10.8 billion, including more than $5.6 billion under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, an omnibus contract that allows the Army to call on KBR for support in all of its field operations. When the Army needs a service performed, it issues a "task order," which lays out specific work requirements under the contract…From 1992 to 1997, KBR held the first LOGCAP contract awarded by the Army, but when it was time to renew the contract, the company lost in the competitive bidding process to DynCorp after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent (some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands). KBR (obtained) the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001…[I]n November 2002 the Army Corps of Engineers tasked KBR to develop a contingency plan for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq…[O]n March 24, 2003, the Army Corps announced publicly that KBR had been awarded a contract to restore oil-infrastructure in Iraq, potentially worth $7 billion. The contract KBR received…would eventually include 10 distinct task orders. KBR did not come close to reaching the contract ceiling, billing just over $2.5 billion…The contract was awarded without submission for public bids or congressional notification. In their response to congressional inquiries, Army officials said they determined that extinguishing oil fires fell under the range of services provided under LOGCAP, meaning that KBR could deploy quickly and without additional security clearances.

Neither the Center for Public Integrity nor Factcheck.org determined anything sinister about Halliburton’s no-bid" contracts for the Iraq war. Two nonpartisan, nonaligned, public interest organizations have investigated the Halliburton allegations and found them to be specious allegations made for purely political purposes.

[Dingoluv4eva]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Too long to read, any way u can summarize the meaning of it all in your own words?

[dealsaver]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Too long to read, any way u can summarize the meaning of it all in your own words?

For those who need a quick summary, read paragraphs 1-3 and the last paragraph.

[Bruce Wayne]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

If companies want to pay their staff a certain ammount then they should be allowed to. It's a free world isn't it? We may not like it but that's too bad. I don't like that sports stars earn so much but I respect their right to do so.

[VJW]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Not really.

Yes, REALLY.

The data doesn't support your responses.

Of course it does.

According to a study of executive compensation by consultant 'Pearl Meyer & Partners', CEO pay increased in 2004 by 12 percent over 2003. Conversely, the average worker’s pay DECREASED in 2004:

"Too often, CEO pay enriches executives without regard to their individual performance to their company"

As far as Haliburton and the Bush administration's record on Corporate Welfare and crony capitalism, the following is the record from two non-partisan public interest organizations as detailed by Micheal Tremoglie in Frontpage

FactCheck.org

FactCheck is a HACK. He has been wrong and inaccurate so often it's not even funny anymore.

If you cannot find the plentiful evidence of the cronyism involved with Halliburton, then there is no hope for you.

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[jmjj215]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Not with Corporate Welfare and crony capitalism from the current administration

Could you be more specific?

[VJW]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

If companies want to pay their staff a certain ammount then they should be allowed to. It's a free world isn't it? We may not like it but that's too bad.

If corporations want to force children to work 14 hours a day and contract with other companies that utilize sweatshops, “then they should be allowed to. It's a free world isn't it? We may not like it but that's too bad.”

Right ?

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[jmjj215]

Re: Minimum wage, good or bad?

Halliburton.

Need I say more ?

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Please do. You're mentioning one corporation as substantiation, but lumping lots of others in with pretty broad-sweeping generalizations.