Time to cut wages

[Liberalman]

Companies are falling by the wayside and they are hoping for big government bailouts but at the same time governments are looking for scapegoats to blame on this falling of the house of cards.

Here we go again the educated and the uneducated are butting heads on who should get paid more.

People that got their degrees in the universities of this great land who spent in the posh setting for the four to seven years discussing various bullcrap theories that would raise them in the pecking order as they continue they’re perceived goals to the BA’s Masters and the all too coveted PhDs.

The rest are working in the trenches honing skills of hands on experience dealing with real life day to day issues.

Since most politicians belong to the first group they will always blame the wage earners who get paid more money that they are worth like the trade workers and labour.

Blue collars always battling the white collars.

When you look at the government bailouts the first to get the money is university grads in the banking and financial industries who with all their education should have known better but are they being asked to cut their wages, NO not them they just have to give up top level management golden parachutes but labour have to cut their wages because it’s labour’s fault that this whole collapse is happening.

Labour will always be the scapegoat as long as the university grads are in charge.

 

[Machjo]

Hmmm... this makes me think of something. Have you noticed that most Canadian politicians have law degrees, and sometimes economics degrees?

It might very well be that an average farmer might have some beter ideas than they would on how to deal with agricultural issues, for example. But why would we not vote for him?

 

[Machjo]

As I think of it, we ought to beware of equating degrees with education in the broader sense. I've heard of university students paying their way through university with earnings from prostitution, others getting into university simply owing to rich parents, etc. Heck, look at George Bush. He doesn't have the grammar of a high school student even though he has a degree from a prestigious university.

Inversely, some people might not have had the chance to go to university owing to unique circumstances, family responsibilities, or even owing to the fact that they can see through the sharade and drop out (Leo Tolstoy falls into that category). Read some of Tolstoy's phylosophical works and you can see that he was well-read in spite of his lack of a degree.

Perhaps it would be wise to look beyond degrees, wealth, prestige, etc. when voting for a candidate. I'd have no problem voting for a candidate who could explain his ideas clearly and who had truly unique ideas even if he had no degree. For crying out loud, if Tolstoy ran, I'd vote for him over any of the candidates in my riding any day, in spite of his tumultuous life. Yes, he got dragged through the dirt of life in spite of his noble birth. He made mistakes in life, ordered the deaths of many people as an officer, engaged in prostitution at a low point in his life. But look at how he ended up. he learnt from his experiences and, like a phoenix from the ashes, came out more of a Christian than most in Canada today. Just read his non-fiction works, and you can see that university drop out or not, he was an independent thinker who said it like it was.

Perhaps it's time we stop worshipping degrees and prestige in politicians and start voting for the Tolstoys among us.

 

[Said1]

Tolstoy had verbal diarrhea.

 

[Machjo]

Tolstoy had verbal diarrhea.

Have you read some of his non-fiction? I don't agree with all of his ideas, but do like many of the principles underlying them.

 

[Said1]

Have you read some of his non-fiction? I don't agree with all of his ideas, but do like many of the principles underlying them.

No I haven't. Russian literature is very heavy and Tolstoy was just a little to slow and ponderous for me. I prefer the lighter writing of Joseph Conrad and Dostoyevsky. Even Crime and Punishment became slightly tedious - arrest the guy already! One of the best suspense scenes ever, though.


Sorry for the derail, LM.

 

[Machjo]

Wouldn't a ponderous polititian be a good thing?

 

[Said1]

Wouldn't a ponderous polititian be a good thing?

According to Plato, yes. But the philosopher kings were expected to be highly educated, skilled reasoners. Is that possible?

 

[Machjo]

Better for a politician to ponder than pander. Sorry, I just couldn't resist that one.

As to your question, I believe it would be possible if the electorate were better educated. But then this is the vicious cycle. A foolish government doesn't recognize the importance of education and so doesn't invest in it sufficiently, resulting in a foolish populace voting in foolish politicians. Vicious catch 22. So which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the educated electorate and working class, or a wise leadership?

We ought to question the teachers too. Ideally teachers ought to teach knowledge of use to society. When thinkers like Tolstoy drop out of university because they don't feel challenged in that direction, we end up with the wise dropping out and the greedy sticking to it for the degree that they can show an employer. I myself had a hard time in my business courses because I disagreed with the very philosophy of the courses themselves (I only realized this once enrolled). Essentially it was that the sole purpose of business is to make money, and all the theories revolved around that basic premise. Clearly a person more interested in the well-being of society, or idealists like myself are not likely to succeed well in such an environment. I passed with flying colours, but then went into jobs that had absolutely nothing to do with my major. I was disgusted by the very philosophy of the course, totally turned off. It's pretty bad when the very principles of the course discourage the student.

I had a friend likewise who'd studied international development and once graduated had to do some soul searching because in her opinion the course was totally paternalistic, eurocentric and looked down on the third world. She was disgusted by it.

Just read Robert Phillipson's Linguistic Imperialism. Though he himself is a trained linguist, he tears the basic premises of Western social linguistic principles to shreds, accusing them of being based on blatantly imperialistic principles even today!

So it's not surprising that idealists like Tolstoy might drop out of such a system while illiterates like Bush might stick to the course.

I do recognize the potential value of a degree, but now I must say it only helps me to get a job, something to show my employer. Yes, I did learn alot of useful economic theory that is applicable to my understanding of the world around me, but the basic worldview of the course was quite repulsive.

This I believe is one reason we should not overstate the importance of formal education in a candidate for government, and instead listen to what he really has to say. University courses, especially in the social sciences, will still often be based on an underlying world view whether it's acknowledged or not. Even if not explicitely acknowledged, it's always there.

 

[Machjo]

Perhaps Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/gbshaw/Pygmalion.pdf) or some equivalent ought to be essential reading at school. Those of you who've read it already know what I'm referring to.

 

[Said1]

I don't think education is necessarily the problem. Politics is no different than the elitist social order existing in the corporate world of bankers, lawyers etc. Being a business major, I'm sure you recognize the value of aggressive social networking.

 

[Machjo]

I don't think education is necessarily the problem. Politics is no different than the elitist social order existing in the corporate world of bankers, lawyers etc. Being a business major, I'm sure you recognize the value of aggressive social networking.

Yes, I recognize it, and have nothing against it per se. But the course was based on what I shall refer to as 'professionalism', and I'm not using it as a complement. There was no critical analysis whatsoever of the underlying social assumptions of the principles presented. It was more like training us how to make money than how to understand the wider world in which we live, the role business plays in it, the impact they have on one another, and how these principles could be applied to not just making money, but also advancing civilization. The depth of criticism was below what I'd expect from a vocational course!

I beleive that in a democracy, higher education, especially if funded by govenrment, ought always to be directed at teaching knowledge that can be of benefit not only to self, but to society. I'm an idealist (as I'm sure you've noticed already), so needless to say I was quite disappointed with the course.

 

[Machjo]

This might also explain why the banks, business leaders, etc. are powerless to stop this economic chaos. They mainly learnt how to use the economy to their own ends like in a game of chess. Needless to say, with that mentality there can only be winners and losers. So if they're all taught like that, systematically, as part of their formal education, and taught that that's just how it is, no wonder the system is collapsing.

 

[gopher]

Begin by cutting the salaries/wages of corporate executives.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Who gets paid what is fixed by the market forces. It is usually decided by supply and demand, the smaller the supply, the greater that particular group gets paid. Hence the high incomes earned by doctors, lawyers etc.

As to blue collar workers, their wages are decided by the unions. Human nature being what it is, unions often get greedy and price the workers out of a job. Thus the auto industry workers negotiated fat pay packets for themselves (my friends knows somebody in auto industry, doing an unskilled job, he says this worker get 85 $ an hour).

It appears they are pricing themselves out of a job. While the wages in big three are around 70 $ an hour, those in other auto factories (Toyota etc.) are 48 $ an hour. Unless the wages are negotiated down, the bailout money won’t do much good, the big three will be out of business in a few more years.

So here again, wages are determined by the market forces. It is no good crying fair or unfair to anything. Nobody deserves to get paid more than market forces dictate. The only place for the state to intervene is to get rid of systemic, institutionalized discrimination against women, by enacting pay equity. Other than that, leave the market forces alone to decide the wages.

 

[Zzarchov]

@ Machjo:

The principle of business IS to make money not to help with society, the question I would ask is why did you take a university course you did not want to be involved in?

If I took medical courses and specialized in stem cell usage, It would seem odd for me to be disgusted by the courses basic premise and complain that it turned me off education.

There are plenty of courses that aren't business that focus on making the world a better place and helping people.

As for wages:

The Autoworkers deserve every penny they get and forcing the unions to drop wages? Fug that!

You aren't bailing the unions out, you are bailing the shareholders out and lets be serious about that. The unions are a supplier, they supply labour used to make the vehicle.

If you are going to force people to charge you less for supplies you are entering soviet territory , why not force their parts suppliers to sell them cheaper parts, or their sales agents to take less commission.

 

[JLM]

Companies are falling by the wayside and they are hoping for big government bailouts but at the same time governments are looking for scapegoats to blame on this falling of the house of cards.

Here we go again the educated and the uneducated are butting heads on who should get paid more.

People that got their degrees in the universities of this great land who spent in the posh setting for the four to seven years discussing various bullcrap theories that would raise them in the pecking order as they continue they’re perceived goals to the BA’s Masters and the all too coveted PhDs.

The rest are working in the trenches honing skills of hands on experience dealing with real life day to day issues.

Since most politicians belong to the first group they will always blame the wage earners who get paid more money that they are worth like the trade workers and labour.

Blue collars always battling the white collars.

When you look at the government bailouts the first to get the money is university grads in the banking and financial industries who with all their education should have known better but are they being asked to cut their wages, NO not them they just have to give up top level management golden parachutes but labour have to cut their wages because it’s labour’s fault that this whole collapse is happening.

Labour will always be the scapegoat as long as the university grads are in charge.

Boy this could be a slippery slope that could be hard to get off. A lot of things go in to the value of a person at his job. Some professionals like doctors, invest a lot of time and money and give up a lot of opportunities to reach their goal and once there they are in great demand, I suppose lawyers do too, but I doubt if the sympathy they get from the public is the same. Engineers, pharmacists, chartered accountants same thing. I think they are all going to have to pare back their demands to some degree as the general public isn't going to have the money available to pay them. I think where the bulk of the fat has to be cut is in these huge companies where the pyramid is too flat. In other words too high of a percentage of the employees is not dedicated directly to production of the product. Government is bad for this as typically once an employee gets up the ladder 3 or 4 levels, he wants to enhance his own self-importance by boosting some one up two or three levels to be his aid. That's where a lot of the bull**** lies and then C.E.O. at the top thinks he's worth more because he has more "important" people under him. I don't think the rank and file employee at the $8-$15 an hour bracket should have their wages decreased. I think every company has to take a very good look at who's producing and get rid of who's not.

 

[JLM]

P.S. Another way of looking at it is "line employees" vs. "staff employees"- increase the ratio of line to staff employees- the latter contribute nothing to the product

 

[Zzarchov]

If its a private business the owner should make as much as he wants, he takes all the risk.

In a corporation all the risk is offloaded to an imaginary person, leaving only reward. In those cases I think there should be a cap, no one in the company can make more than 20 times the amount of anyone else in the company.

 

[JLM]

If its a private business the owner should make as much as he wants, he takes all the risk.

In a corporation all the risk is offloaded to an imaginary person, leaving only reward. In those cases I think there should be a cap, no one in the company can make more than 20 times the amount of anyone else in the company.

When I first joined the work force, the head honcho typically made seven times the salary of the lowest paid employee, now it's probably more like 70 times.