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Biggerboat1 on 20 September 2019
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the-pi-guy said:

Baalzamon said:
Individuals making millions of times more than what their employees are making...could you point that one out for me? If a full time Walmart employee makes $25,000...you do realize that would mean somebody would have to make $25B per year right?

1.)  Jeff Bezos made close to 78 billion in a year.  

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-makes-every-day-hour-minute-2018-10#targetText=At%20the%20annual%20earnings%20rate,in%20the%20last%2012%20months.

And I am sure you will point out that most of that can't be transferred into liquid cash or that he isn't making that every year.  Doesn't really matter because the main point is that some people are making almost unimaginable amounts of money.  

2.)  On the topic of Walmart themselves, they have made massive improvements on this point.  They tended to make minimum wage for a long time.  Meanwhile the Walton family is worth about $200 billion.  

Baalzamon said:
I have a question for you. A person makes $50,000 per year, but their boss/owner makes $100,000. The owner is able to improve profitability of their company, and the original person gets a raise that (after inflation adjustments) amounts to $55,000. The boss/owner, however, makes $200,000 that year.

In the first year, the boss made 2* as much. In the second scenario, the boss made nearly 4* as much, but the original employee was actually better off.

In VERY simplistic terms, this is why I cannot stand when people bring up wage differentials between their bosses/owners and themselves.

You can't stand it because some people are talking about different things than you.  

Some people care about income inequality as an issue in itself.  Income inequality is a predictor for a lot of social issues, so some people would prefer lower slightly more equal income over higher less equal incomes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_economic_inequality

You also didn't ask a question.  All you did here was posit a scenario, and then decided that one was better than the other.  

For some people, the previous situation was better because it was more equal.  

For me, just because the latter situation was better for everyone involved, it doesn't mean that the previous situation or a different situation couldn't be more "fair", depending on what measurement was considered fair.  

Baalzamon said:
I'm somebody who is ok with being content with my earnings, completely regardless of what other people make. I can determine on my own, regardless of what my boss or co-workers make whether I am happy with my pay. For that matter, my boss probably makes twice as much as I do...and quite frankly, his staff are what makes him look like he is good. But I don't really care, because I think I'm well compensated for what I do.

Well that's good for you.

Other people in the world think that their situation is unfair.  

Others think its unfair that the Walton family is worth $200 billion, while many of their employees literally require government aid just to get anywhere. 

>I can determine on my own, regardless of what my boss or co-workers make whether I am happy with my pay.

That's weird, because when other people determine on their own whether they are happy with their pay, you decide to take issue with that.  

Baalzamon said:
It kills many people, however, to know that other people are making more money than them. That is where the heart of this problem lies. People will always be jealous that somebody makes more than them, especially when they perceive them to be doing less or easier work than what they do.

Yes, that's the only issue.  "My boss is making more than me."

Has nothing to do with GM's factories being closed. 

Has nothing to do with Walmart, Amazon being worth billions of dollars using government aided labor.  

For me, I don't really care if someone is making more than me or anyone else.  I take issue with the fact that some people need food stamps for their families despite working full time for companies that literally make billions every year.  

Just thought I'd chip in to say that I'm really enjoying this debate - interesting and compelling points on both sides. It's amazing how spritely a debate can be when one or two certain posters aren't stymying things with deliberately obtuse positions.

On the point about everyone being a winner if the employee goes from 50 to 55K & the boss from 100 to 200K - I think it's also important to say that this principle being applied across the world economy does create problems especially when taking into account things that are of finite supply. Take property for instance - if all of the big-wigs decide to invest their ballooning earnings into property (and they do) then it causes house prices to rise dramatically to an extent that Mr 55K is in the same place or even worse off than he was before due to spiralling rent or property prices...