docwyte said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
I don't want to sound offensive here, but it sounds like you're on the whaaahambulance here. You're not getting exploited. It's not some sort of plot to keep you down. You have it in your power to increase your skills, climb the corporate ladder, go out and free lance, become a consultant, start a business, whatever it is you choose to increase your earnings.
I'm not being exploited in particular, the bottom 90% of the workforce is being exploited en masse which includes most of us. It's plainly visible in the pay by percentile vs. profit stats. There is a plot, or perhaps more accurately a collective interest from those at the top, to keep all of the rest of us down. Increasing your skills has sharply diminishing returns and frankly it's hardly ever done anything for my pay in itself, it seems that to realize the benefits of training you need to switch jobs. Climbing the corporate ladder is just trying to move to the side of the system that benefits from it. Freelancing/consulting/entrepreneurialism is kind of the same thing, but it puts you in control so you can choose not to exploit anyone else and you can get full access to the fruits of your own labor. That's the route I'm thinking I'll take for myself, more for time off than for pay, although that in itself doesn't fix the problem for anyone else and isn't an option for anyone who can't save up the resources needed to do so.
In short I don't think "GIT GUD at / get on the inside of the game" is a good answer to the game apparently being rigged, the evidence that it is is too strong to ignore. It's like moving inland and closer to the poles as a response to global warming. It's mitigating the most obvious symptoms for yourself in a way only available to a few people rather than treating the problem.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
You have more excuses and reasons on why the world won't work in your favor, yet plenty of people have figured out how to make it work. It's a YOU problem, but you will never admit it.
Fine, you're a victim, the big greedy people got together and decided you don't deserve any better, happy now? All better?
tester (Forum Supporter) said:Only 1.5% of workers were at or below the Federal minimum wage in 2020 versus 6% in 2010. The wage data was on trend over that time so the decrease was not caused by the shutdowns. The hypothetical wage problem is well on the way to being eliminated. The emotional argument about workers being stuck at minimum wage is restricted to an exceptionally small group of people when we look at the numbers.
I do think we are seeing the elimination of entry level jobs like the one I had in high school. Honestly, that's terrifying for society and the economy.
Nearly 50% of the American workforce makes less than $36,000 a year. Better than minimum wage, but still E36 M3. 1/3rd earns less than $15/hr. That's 52 million people.
There aren't enough good jobs to go around. That's not a problem when Illinois is cheap and California is expensive and their respective cost of living is factored into average wages, but when the folks in Illinois see a rent percentage jump equal to that of folks in California, that hurts them a lot more. When you only make $36,000 a year, paying an extra $2000 per year hurts.
When we say "shrinking of the American middle class" - we mean - "expansion of the American working poor." That's what's happening. As a percentage, there are more people who work full-time but are struggling to make ends meet than their are people developing their career at a comfortable income level.
People at the bottom end of the income scale also pay a substantially large portion of their income towards healthcare - even if they have insurance.
The rose-colored world where everyone makes 6 figures just doesn't exist.
Fine. Does that mean we should have a housing system and real estate investment industry that more or less preys on people who cant make six figures?
One of two things has gotta happen - we pay people more, or we make life less expensive for them. It seems like the real estate industry, or at least the system unwittingly, through "The Law of Unintended Consequences" has end up making life really hard for every other American (ie, half the population).
What is 50% of the population going to do when they couldn't save a dime their entire lives and now they are seniors who can't work and their retirements are pitiful?
Either way, we're building a lot of low-income or government housing.
Steve_Jones said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
You have more excuses and reasons on why the world won't work in your favor, yet plenty of people have figured out how to make it work. It's a YOU problem, but you will never admit it.
It's not just a me problem, it's a 90%+ of the world population problem. Relatively few people have "figured out how to make it work."
In reply to pheller :
Why is it the government's responsibility to do anything? Freedom includes the freedom to fail and the freedom to suck at life. Expecting the government to do anything about it is laughable.
The government controls education and has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt it can't do a minimally decent job at educating people for better jobs.
They have provided housing for the poor and have proved they can't provide decent housing for people. Section 8 housing is by far the worst housing a person could live in. People without any skin in the game don't care about their surroundings. They never have and they never will.
The government has proved they can't even do something as simple as delivering mail to the correct address. 10% of the checks I mail every year get lost or are returned, or are just never picked up unless I hand deliver the mail to the post office. The post-master's response? There isn't anything I can do, drop your mail in a blue box or hand deliver it to the post office.
If you want the problem to be infinitely worse, get the government involved. Have you seen what their fix for higher education has done to the price of higher education? Yep, by making it affordable for everyone, they have driven the prices through the roof for everyone.
GameboyRMH said:Steve_Jones said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
You have more excuses and reasons on why the world won't work in your favor, yet plenty of people have figured out how to make it work. It's a YOU problem, but you will never admit it.
It's not just a me problem, it's a 90%+ of the world population problem. Relatively few people have "figured out how to make it work."
Now we have moved the goal posts to fix "the worlds poor". Fine, now let's include the entire world. You are doing better than 99% of the world, why are you bitching?
Apparently, the answer is 42.
Steve_Jones said:Now we have moved the goal posts to fix "the worlds poor". Fine, now let's include the entire world. You are doing better than 99% of the world, why are you bitching?
First of all, not even in the top 10%:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-part-of-the-1-percent-worldwide.html
Second, the idea that nobody should bitch about an unfair system if it benefits them is the "FYGM" attitude. I'd say it's even more important than usual to bitch about an unfair system if it benefits you, because the people who benefit from a system have the most power to change it.
pheller said:
Fine. Does that mean we should have a housing system and real estate investment industry that more or less preys on people who cant make six figures?
My daughter makes about $60k. She is house shopping now. Her bank has approved her to right at $300k. People making less than $100k can buy a house. What is the problem is having the discipline to do the hard things to buy one. Saving for a down payment, being responsible with credit, not spending money on everything that catches your fancy, and not dropping 5 kids before you are 25. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
This goes back to the education problem and all the important things that the system doesn't teach kids.
GameboyRMH said:Steve_Jones said:Now we have moved the goal posts to fix "the worlds poor". Fine, now let's include the entire world. You are doing better than 99% of the world, why are you bitching?
First of all, not even in the top 10%:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-part-of-the-1-percent-worldwide.html
Second, the idea that nobody should bitch about an unfair system if it benefits them is the "FYGM" attitude. I'd say it's even more important than usual to bitch about an unfair system if it benefits you, because the people who benefit from a system have the most power to change it.
Again, move those posts. Not net worth, wages. You are complaining about wages. If you make more than $34k a year you are in the top 1% of the world in wages.
It's not FU "got" mine. it's FU "earned" mine as far as I am concerned. Notice how many times the word "earned" has been tossed your way? Yet, you ignore it.
Steve_Jones said:Again, move those posts. Not net worth, wages. You are complaining about wages. If you make more than $34k a year you are in the top 1% of the world in wages.
Excellent, I'm doing the best kind of complaining then.
Steve_Jones said:It's not FU "got" mine. it's FU "earned" mine as far as I am concerned. Notice how many times the word "earned" has been tossed your way? Yet, you ignore it.
Yes we've discussed how "earned" is a farce when a small in-group decides that you've only "earned" an unfairly small share of the profit you did the work to generate at a company they control. But you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I stated this earlier...
My son made less than $25,000 per year when he bought his first house 2 years ago. Atlanta market.
Nobody needs 6 figure to buy a house.
pheller said:Nearly 50% of the American workforce makes less than $36,000 a year. Better than minimum wage, but still E36 M3. 1/3rd earns less than $15/hr. That's 52 million people.
Wow! Really? I actually make a bit more than half the people in this country. And unlike most of the people in the Dallas Area, I'm not paying $2,000 a month rent because the house I actually live in is paid for. So who are all these people down at the lake driving $60,000 pickups and towing all those expensive boats? My 12 foot Jon boat cost less than $1,000 and the Jeep Cherokee I tow it with has three different colors of primer and almost 300,000 miles on it. People here in big money Dallas are always making fun of me.
Seriously. What's up with that? Where is my $40,000 Bass Boat. What's going on here?
Also do you care to explain why management has "earned it" more and more over time since the introduction of computers?
Computers are a tool. They don't do any work, they allow work to be done more efficiently. But the end result is that more work/efficiency is expected, so it's a wash in the end.
First I'd prefer to avoid management work, and second there's a lot of palace intrigue, social climbing and backstabbing involved in those jobs which I want no part of. Getting those sorts of jobs is also a lot easier if you come from the right background, which I don't.
So you stopped yourself on the ladder because you don't want to do the work of a manager. That's fine, lots of people don't want to/can't do that kind of work. Buy that is also why you don't get that pay. Why is that so hard to understand? Someone has to do it. You don't want to. But you want the pay. I've worked for a number of companies in the 30+ years that I've been working. None of what you wrote makes any sense. I don't know a single person that got promoted by back stabbing or secrets or social climbing. What they mostly had in common was being hard workers demonstrating responsibility, and being leaders.
I think that is a big part of what you are missing. The responsibility part. Pay is based mostly on responsibility, not production. The job might be put the widget in the box. The worker has to put the widget in the box. They do all the production- without them no widgets go in boxes. So I can kind of understand why their value is over inflated to you. But anyone can do it, and there is not much responsibility or stress in widget boxing. There are only so many ways it can go wrong. Management has to work with the widget suppliers, box suppliers, shippers, manage staffing, control costs, etc. etc.. They are responsible if anything goes wrong and widgets don't get boxed, which can cost the company lots of money. That's why we have management and why they get paid more. So if you work for Widgets Inc., but don't want to do anything but box widgets- who's fault is that when your career is stagnant? Why do you deserve more?
In reply to GameboyRMH :
They don't just control it. They own it.
If I own a car that I purchase for $10K and when the time comes to sell it it's worth $20K, I'll be damned if I'm m gonna share any of the profits with the guy buying it. ESPECIALLY if somebody thinks I somehow "owe" it to him. And I'm not gonna share the profits with my mechanic, or the body shop guy, or anyone other than me who has helped to "generate the profit". Everyone of those people was paid for their efforts, and paid fairly.
No berkeleying way. I own it. I will sell it for what I choose to, and keep all of the profits.
But while we are on this, how come YOU are not sharing what you make with ME?
In reply to GameboyRMH :
You've made your point. Over and over. We disagree thoroughly. I'm not changing my mind.
...and I don't hear too many people in this thread agreeing with you.
Boost_Crazy said:Computers are a tool. They don't do any work, they allow work to be done more efficiently. But the end result is that more work/efficiency is expected, so it's a wash in the end.
What about AI? The computer that controls the robots that put the widgets in the boxes? The drones that replace the delivery driver? They are already working on chatbots that can answer simple legal questions and actually replace lawyers. So what happens when we have computers that can program other computers?
AI is coming for all our jobs. Elon warned us.
In reply to pheller :
One of two things has gotta happen - we pay people more, or we make life less expensive for them. It seems like the real estate industry, or at least the system unwittingly, through "The Law of Unintended Consequences" has end up making life really hard for every other American (ie, half the population).
You solved it, but you have the wrong people responsible for doing the solving. It's not WE need to pay people more, or WE need to make life less expensive for them. It's I need to make more money, and I need to make life less expensive for myself. This isn't a society problem, it's an individual problem. And people solve this every day, using the vary methods that many of us have been sharing for 50+ pages.
As for hard lives, we all have a choice how hard of a life we want to live. Poor choices lead to harder lives. But they are still easier lives than most of the world, and most of human history, do I'd say that we are trending in the right direction. Funny thing about mankind. One of our greatest strengths is that "good enough" is rarely "good enough," we have an innate desire to better our situation. A side effect is that it makes it really hard to appreciate what we have- because we know better is available. But knowing is only the beginning, doing is the important part. Unfortunately, it appears some people have substituted doing with telling others what they should do for them.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
What about AI? The computer that controls the robots that put the widgets in the boxes? The drones that replace the delivery driver? They are already working on chatbots that can answer simple legal questions and actually replace lawyers. So what happens when we have computers that can program other computers?
AI is coming for all our jobs. Elon warned us.
I don't think that is what people are talking about when they mean computers in the workplace at this time. In the future, who knows? I'm convinced that automation will replace many unskilled labor jobs, it's already progressing at a rapid rate in the service industry. But AI replacing skilled jobs is a bit of a leap. My main concern would be if trucking and transportation ever went automated large scale. That is a large percent of the workforce. I tell my kids to learn skills and choose professions that are automation proof, because the world they grow up in will be quite a bit different.
Boost_Crazy said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
What about AI? The computer that controls the robots that put the widgets in the boxes? The drones that replace the delivery driver? They are already working on chatbots that can answer simple legal questions and actually replace lawyers. So what happens when we have computers that can program other computers?
AI is coming for all our jobs. Elon warned us.
I don't think that is what people are talking about when they mean computers in the workplace at this time. In the future, who knows? I'm convinced that automation will replace many unskilled labor jobs, it's already progressing at a rapid rate in the service industry. But AI replacing skilled jobs is a bit of a leap. My main concern would be if trucking and transportation ever went automated large scale. That is a large percent of the workforce. I tell my kids to learn skills and choose professions that are automation proof, because the world they grow up in will be quite a bit different.
I have already seen it in my field. You used to hire a bunch of unemployed lawyers and paralegals to go through boxes of documents looking for letters and contracts with certain words. Now you hire one guy to run the computer and clerks to scan the documents in and the computer will find the relevant documents faster than humans can. They can also look for combinations of words or one word within a certain number of words of another word. That technology is already here and we are hiring fewer people and less educated people. This has already happened.
They are already testing self driving trucks but they have different problems there. Your maps have to be detailed and you always have to be updating them. Change an off ramp without updating the map and your truck goes off the road. Still lots of bugs to be worked out. And the first time a self driving truck kills somebody it will set things back for years. Not that it still won't happen. They would love to replace all those drivers with computers and save that money. Amazon just started using drones in Dallas.
SV reX said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
They don't just control it. They own it.
Not always, often with big companies most of the owners are public shareholders and the upper management and execs own relatively little of the company. They still tend to have the same pay structure, so it's more about control than ownership.
SV reX said:If I own a car that I purchase for $10K and when the time comes to sell it it's worth $20K, I'll be damned if I'm m gonna share any of the profits with the guy buying it. ESPECIALLY if somebody thinks I somehow "owe" it to him. And then m not gonna share the profits with my mechanic, or the body shop guy, or anyone other than me who has helped to "generate the profit". Everyone of those people was paid for their efforts, and paid fairly.
No berkeleying way. I own it. I will sell it for what I choose to, and keep all of the profits.
The car's not a good example because it's a business-to-business transaction between you and those who worked on it, not an employer/employee relationship. You have no more reason to share profits with them than a company would to share profits with its suppliers or outside contractors. If you were running a car restoration business and had employees on staff restoring the car, then it would be a different matter (assuming the increased value was a result of their labor to improve the car rather than from some unrelated reason like the model being featured in a movie etc).
SV reX said:But while we are on this, how come YOU are not sharing what you make with ME?
You...don't work for me and never did?
In reply to GameboyRMH :
It was an example.
The point was... How much of what you own or earn are you willing to give to other people? So far, it looks like zero to me.
You can criticize me all you want. I ran my businesses with the highest ethical standards, paid people well, often took pay cuts to give others raises, and BUILT several businesses from scratch. And there is absolutely no way I am sharing the profits with someone who did not take the same risk along with me.
It's mine. I built it. Anyone wanting to build something similar is welcome to leave and build their own (and over the years some did, and I supported their new businesses financially while they got started)
Its an ugly entitlement perspective. No, you are not entitled to something I own and built. Even if you were an employee of mine when it happened.
docwyte said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
I don't want to sound offensive here, but it sounds like you're on the whaaahambulance here. You're not getting exploited. It's not some sort of plot to keep you down. You have it in your power to increase your skills, climb the corporate ladder, go out and free lance, become a consultant, start a business, whatever it is you choose to increase your earnings.
What it boils down to is you don't want to. Which is totally fine, but to then proclaim that you deserve more money without actually doing anything different than you currently are is simply naive. You need to earn it, so go out and DO something. Take the risks involved, otherwise be happy with where you are and stop complaining about not getting pay that you simply don't deserve to get right now. There's a saying thrown around a lot in the military, "choose your rate, choose your fate". You've chosen yours, either except your fate or do something about changing your rate.
put very well. You may be a wordsmith sir.
In reply to SV reX :
I'm not accusing you of doing anything unethical, nor am I criticizing anything you did or you as a person. But if someone was contributing their labor to a business I owned, I would be fine with paying them a fair share of what it produces...we've already discussed the co-op structure I proposed.
SV reX said:Its an ugly entitlement perspective. No, you are not entitled to something I own and built. Even if you were an employee of mine when it happened.
If that person was an employee of a thing you built when you were building it, then it sounds like that person contributed to building it, and you didn't build it all on your own. Maybe you built 95% of it, maybe you only built 5% of it, but it wasn't 100% you even if your name is on the paperwork. If the thing makes money, they should get a fair share of what it produces while they're contributing to its operation. For a tiny company that might be in line with market-competitive wages, again this is all theoretical and I'm not saying you did or didn't to this, but I don't think it's fair to take all the credit from something other people contributed to because they built onto something you owned.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Without moving the goal post or coming up with some hypothetical situation, please tell me why YOU deserve part of the profit over and above the wage YOU agreed upon with none of the risks? You want some sort of guarantee if it does not work out (like a base salary) but extra if it does.
You have a very distorted view of what it means to be an employee, you agreed to do a job for $x, the employer agreed to pay you that amount for the job. That is the extent of the "relationship". Just like the supplier and outside contractor you say the company does not need to share profits with, they do not need to share them with you. There is no "relationship" it's a contract between you and them for a specific job. If you don't want to do it, they will simply find someone else that will.
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