• Huge leak reveals how the world's rich and powerful hide their money and dodge sanctions/taxes
    434 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;50068498]And why should the boss get double pay exactly? Wealth needs to be fairly shared, the point of the graph is wealth inequality and it demonstrates that point. We produce double than 1970, but we dont own double. [editline]4th April 2016[/editline] That is where things like basic income come into play, thanks to machines and computers we don't need to work as hard as we used to, but we still do. Why?[/QUOTE] The boss made a risk by investing in new machines. The employees, on the other hand, accepted no risk and should get paid twice for doing the same amount of work as before?
[QUOTE=Govna;50068360]It's not the events themselves that I'm wishing for so much as hoping that something good will come out of them. Like others have said, it seems to be inevitable at this point that major civil unrest is coming up in the future for the world. The question that remains them is what will come of it? Will we be able to organize and actually build something better out of the chaos and destruction, or is it going to turn completely to shit and end up like it was in Russia after the fall of the Romanov Dynasty and later like it was under the Soviet Union (to address your example)? Personally, I would prefer the former course of events over the latter. Crises can either be really good things in the long run, or they can be really shitty things. They can either force people to work together beneficially, or they can make everybody super competitive and go at each others' throats like wild animals. We need to start thinking about this more and more though. That's the bottom line. That way, if/when the old system does go, we don't end up helpless in a power vacuum because we didn't have something planned out beforehand to replace it. Are we up to the task? I don't know. But for our sake, we'd better be. We need to be. In the end, it's a matter of whatever happens, happens. The uncertainty is the worst part. [editline]4th April 2016[/editline] Isn't Occupy starting up again? I doubt anything would come of it for them, but they might give it a shot at least.[/QUOTE] Look at Ukraine as your example - a romantised version of revolution starts with huge overwhelming support from "internetz" generation without disregard for true consequences or plan, leads to rise of vile nationalistc forces and new rulling elite that is blaming all problems exlusively on external force to keep public eye busy while scooping money and destroying remnants of economical system. Do you really want that planet wise? Nah, we need a steady reformation age, where change does not come from "lows vs highs" but swipes over society vertically - you need a political movement that is dedicated to growing up replacements for corrupt elements on [B]ALL[/B] levels soo that when you pull out bad column, whole structure does not collapse. And so on - vertically you would create equal force to be reckon with, functioning from A to B without need to comprimise much or abuse due to it integrity from begining. The Hardest task but the only logical one.
[QUOTE=karimatrix;50068553]Look at Ukraine as your example - a romantised version of revolution starts with huge overwhelming support from "internetz" generation without disregard for true consequences or plan, leads to rise of vile nationalistc forces and new rulling elite that is blaming all problems exlusively on external force to keep public eye busy while scooping money and destroying remnants of economical system. Do you really want that planet wise? Nah, we need a steady reformation age, where change does not come from "lows vs highs" but swipes over society vertically - you need a political movement that is dedicated to growing up replacements for corrupt elements on [B]ALL[/B] levels soo that when you pull out bad column, whole structure does not collapse. And so on - vertically you would create equal force to be reckon with, functioning from A to B without need to comprimise much or abuse due to it integrity from begining. The Hardest task but the only logical one.[/QUOTE] Are you saying the Ukranian revolution shouldn't have happened? That they should have stuck with Yanukovich, a puppet of Putin?
[QUOTE=proboardslol;50068561]Are you saying the Ukranian revolution shouldn't have happened? That they should have stuck with Yanukovich, a puppet of Putin?[/QUOTE] to be honest there's not been a great deal of change as a result of the revolution ukrainians seem to have given up halfway through and reform efforts are piecemeal and sporadic. at least they're making a better effort than the russians though perhaps one of the biggest impacts is that ukraines economy is now permanently shifted away from russia and is slowly integrating with that of europe - trade with russia has collapsed and trade with europe is going to grow to replace it.
[QUOTE=proboardslol;50068244]Right; especially since the employee is still left to cover part of the costs as well. My mom pays [B]$700/month[/B] for her healthcare. Her employer pays $1700/month for their part, which is absolutely mind boggling to me, who can't even imagine affording food after $1600/month rent[/QUOTE] Jesus christ do Americans really pay that much for healthcare? That is terrible
[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35962326]Chinese politicians are involved[/url] including some close allies of Xi, could be interesting considering he has led a huge crackdown on corruption and people literally get executed for it
[QUOTE=smurfy;50068738][url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35962326]Chinese politicians are involved[/url] including some close allies of Xi, could be interesting considering he has led a huge crackdown on corruption and people literally get executed for it[/QUOTE] I believe China is currently censoring or even removing any mentions of this scandal
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;50068867]Why don't we pay factory workers as much as we did in 1780 again? Why would they let my granduncle, a factory worker, earn so much that he could buy a big house with a colossal garden in Hamburg? Capitalists make all the investments. They take all the risks. Should they get all the money as well? Should workers be their "serfs"? Somehow, if the business goes down, not only capitalists suffer. They don't take all the risks. Workers are not independent contractors, they are a part of the company.[/QUOTE] The boss owns the company. The boss pays the workers for their time and labor, they're entitled to nothing else. The employer made the risk and investment, not the employees. If they have a problem with that, they can leave.
[QUOTE=maeZtro;50068291]That is a good point, we started to see some really big improvements in machines and computers around the time when the productivity sky rockets and the wage stays roughly the same.[/QUOTE] There's also the fact that service jobs are a huge part of the job market and most of those would be very difficult to measure in terms of productivity.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;50068926]The boss owns the company. The boss pays the workers for their time and labor, they're entitled to nothing else. The employer made the risk and investment, not the employees. If they have a problem with that, they can leave.[/QUOTE] You look at it all together too black and white it's symbiotic. It's not all down on one party. It's clearly on both parties.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50069078]You look at it all together too black and white it's symbiotic. It's not all down on one party. It's clearly on both parties.[/QUOTE] I agree that may be a bit too simplistic view of things but so is just looking at productivity and wages and making decisions based on that.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;50068926]The boss owns the company. The boss pays the workers for their time and labor, they're entitled to nothing else. The employer made the risk and investment, not the employees. If they have a problem with that, they can leave.[/QUOTE] The employer has the risk which is why they make more money. If everyone's wage doubles then the employer gets more of the new money because if a>b 2a>2b. The alternative is the sort of income inequality we see now where people are struggling to get by on full time jobs whilst others have more money than you could spend in a lifetime. No one here is arguing for everyone earning the same, only that the money is distributed fairly based on time, effort and, yes, risk.
[QUOTE=NeonpieDFTBA;50069211]only that the money is distributed fairly based on time, effort and, yes, risk.[/QUOTE] So, if you don't think a free market can do this, then how do you go about deciding what's fair?
In other news this could be a perfect PAYDAY 2 Heist if they didn't turn into shit.
[QUOTE=Mmrnmhrm;50069162]I agree that may be a bit too simplistic view of things but so is just looking at productivity and wages and making decisions based on that.[/QUOTE] Then what should we look at? [editline]4th April 2016[/editline] I mean obviously these papers leaking isn't going to get anyone arrested or even forced to pay the taxes they owe, it's illegally gleamed information, it's not going to change anything. Not to mention these are the people who donate more money to political campaigns than you or I earn in a life time, and they do so for a purpose. To keep their status quo. Not to be evil or malicious, but to avoid change that hurts them and encourage change that helps them. A change they're not behind is higher wages in return for the productivity. So what's the solution? If people refuse to see them as having an unfair stance in all this, then clearly it's fair what they do and you have to accept you'll die where you started.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50069304]Then what should we look at? [editline]4th April 2016[/editline] I mean obviously these papers leaking isn't going to get anyone arrested or even forced to pay the taxes they owe, it's illegally gleamed information, it's not going to change anything. Not to mention these are the people who donate more money to political campaigns than you or I earn in a life time, and they do so for a purpose. To keep their status quo. Not to be evil or malicious, but to avoid change that hurts them and encourage change that helps them. A change they're not behind is higher wages in return for the productivity. So what's the solution? If people refuse to see them as having an unfair stance in all this, then clearly it's fair what they do and you have to accept you'll die where you started.[/QUOTE] Are you asking based on a sense of fairness or pure economic utility? If fairness, then it seems fair to me that a person should expect to get the full consequence of their actions, whether good or bad. So if the employer takes the entirety of the risk when buying a new machine that doubles his production, then he should get the entirety of the benefit. If pure economic utility, then it's simply a difficult question of mathematical statistics.
[QUOTE=sgman91;50069363]Are you asking based on a sense of fairness or economic consequence?[/QUOTE] Are those not related concepts? If we look purely at fairness, it's clearly not a "fair" system depending on who you are, or it's extremely fair because the poors without capital don't get in the way this way. If we look at it from economic consequences it's an interesting thing because clearly the poor of the world are in a better state then ever, so what do they have to complain about? And the rich of the world are the richest of the richest of the rich in all of human history and to such a dizzying extent that we really honestly can't even comprehend the numbers, so as far as a consequence goes, that's a fairly decent one, but I'm sure there's those of us who think that's fair as well and devoid of consequences. The truth as far as I can tell is, that the economic stagnation of the wages of the poor, and middle poor(because it's not middle class anymore, it's certainly not) has earned the few a power over politics, government, finance, taxation, and really, global supply chains, that are clearly unbalanced, but should we be upset about that? It seems you're okay with that and even embrace that. I don't and I can't. At the end of the day, I just know those of us without millions of dollars are factually under-represented in every facet of modern politics and representation.
[QUOTE=Potus;50068913]I believe China is currently censoring or even removing any mentions of this scandal[/QUOTE] In other news, bears shit in the woods.
The biggest problem I see with deciding pay based on productivity is that it encourages businesses to be as wasteful and ineffcient as possible. Why bother trying to make your company more efficient when all it does is increase everyone's wages?
[QUOTE=Mmrnmhrm;50069714]The biggest problem I see with deciding pay based on productivity is that it encourages businesses to be as wasteful and ineffcient as possible. Why bother trying to make your company more efficient when all it does is increase everyone's wages?[/QUOTE] I wouldn't go that far, but it definitely decreases the incentive for taking risk.
[QUOTE=Mmrnmhrm;50069714]The biggest problem I see with deciding pay based on productivity is that it encourages businesses to be as wasteful and ineffcient as possible. Why bother trying to make your company more efficient when all it does is increase everyone's wages?[/QUOTE] What you're saying here is this: Maureen has a business with 2 workers. They each produce one milkshake machine an hour by hand. These make £100 profit each. She pays the workers £10 an hour and keeps £90. Maureen is offered tools to double the rate of work of her workers, which will cost her £1000. This requires a few days of saving, but after this initial investment Maureen will be up to £180/week of profit, however, Maureen refuses to do this because...? Plus this assumes that all increases in productivity come from investement in machines and tools, when it also comes from more educated/skilled workers who can produce more because [i]they[/i] invested more, and I've never seen an employer not take a share of that extra productivity.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;50068926]The boss owns the company. The boss pays the workers for their time and labor, they're entitled to nothing else. The employer made the risk and investment, not the employees. If they have a problem with that, they can leave.[/QUOTE] So if you're a construction worker, you take no risk of injury when you work? Or if you're an office worker, you take none of the health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle? What about people who drive to work? Do they take none of the risks associated with driving? Workers take tons of risks that have far more harmful implications than the ones capitalists take. For them, another failed business venture is just another failed business venture. For us, we risk our lives (or at the very least, the quality of our lives) to generate profit for them. This is aside from the fact that workers face far more chronic stress while having less freedom than the owners. But aside from that, what is it about risk that just magically gives people special entitlements? Was slavery in the southern United States acceptable because plantation owners took risks? After all, they certainly took the risk of being killed in slave revolts or having their power taken from them by the abolition of slavery.
[QUOTE=sgman91;50069271]So, if you don't think a free market can do this, then how do you go about deciding what's fair?[/QUOTE] The problem is that right now there is an imbalance of power between big companies/rich people and the middle/working class. I would expect that this has a lot to do with the decline of unions and the increasing power of lobbyists. I remember a video which I can't find right now which linked the date where lobbyists had access to the voting of all of US politicians cast votes to the departure of wages/productivity.
[QUOTE=NeonpieDFTBA;50069882]The problem is that right now there is an imbalance of power between big companies/rich people and the middle/working class. I would expect that this has a lot to do with the decline of unions and the increasing power of lobbyists. I remember a video which I can't find right now which linked the date where lobbyists had access to the voting of all of US politicians cast votes to the departure of wages/productivity.[/QUOTE] Politicians spend 2/3rds of their time raising money. They aren't raising it from the poors. They're raising it from people who can throw a thousand dollars away. Yeah the systems dramatically unrepresentative. You're not likely to get hardline capitalists to want that any other way.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50069889]Politicians spend 2/3rds of their time raising money. They aren't raising it from the poors. They're raising it from people who can throw a thousand dollars away. Yeah the systems dramatically unrepresentative. You're not likely to get hardline capitalists to want that any other way.[/QUOTE] [t]http://i.imgur.com/Zj5O3Ua.png[/t] This basically represents the problem: "public opinion has “near-zero” impact on u.s. law." [url=https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf]-Princeton University[/url]
[QUOTE=daschnek;50069856]So if you're a construction worker, you take no risk of injury when you work? Or if you're an office worker, you take none of the health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle? What about people who drive to work? Do they take none of the risks associated with driving? Workers take tons of risks that have far more harmful implications than the ones capitalists take. For them, another failed business venture is just another failed business venture. For us, we risk our lives (or at the very least, the quality of our lives) to generate profit for them. This is aside from the fact that workers face far more chronic stress while having less freedom than the owners. But aside from that, what is it about risk that just magically gives people special entitlements? Was slavery in the southern United States acceptable because plantation owners took risks? After all, they certainly took the risk of being killed in slave revolts or having their power taken from them by the abolition of slavery.[/QUOTE] All good points. Those risks come with the job, and the worker must negotiate for compensation should those risks turn tragic. In the scenario of unions and construction, compensation would be covered in case of injury. In the scenario of a office lifestyle, start taking a walk or jog on the weekends to get the exercise you need. And bringing slavery of all things up kind of makes it hard to take you seriously at this point.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;50069987]All good points. Those risks come with the job, and the worker must negotiate for compensation should those risks turn tragic. In the scenario of unions and construction, compensation would be covered in case of injury. In the scenario of a office lifestyle, start taking a walk or jog on the weekends to get the exercise you need. And bringing slavery of all things up kind of makes it hard to take you seriously at this point.[/QUOTE] My more general point is that everyone takes some degree of risk when they do practically anything. Given that workers work, and we're the ones actually doing things in the workplace, this means that we take the most risks in general. The owners and investors in some major construction project or other business do not have to even be on site, much less taking the physical or mental risks involved in actually doing something. Workers also don't get bailouts the same way that large institutions and their owners do. The people whose risky investments did fail and nearly take the economy with it are doing quite fine and are not in prison, and many financial criminals who did go to prison in decades past are still doing quite fine (Michael Milken and Andrew Fastow are still rather successful, actually). We take the risk of being fired, losing our homes, having poor nutrition, going to prison, and so on. If due compensation went to those who take risks, workers should be those first and foremost compensated. But again, risks taken do not entitle anyone to anything. It's just an ad hoc argument made to justify an incredibly broken and destructive system.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;50069987]All good points. Those risks come with the job, and the worker must negotiate for compensation should those risks turn tragic. In the scenario of unions and construction, compensation would be covered in case of injury. In the scenario of a office lifestyle, start taking a walk or jog on the weekends to get the exercise you need. And bringing slavery of all things up kind of makes it hard to take you seriously at this point.[/QUOTE] So if all the employeers decided "well we're all not going to do this for our employees" employees would just be fucked, and you're okay with that, and even for that
[QUOTE=daschnek;50070073]My more general point is that everyone takes some degree of risk when they do practically anything. Given that workers work, and we're the ones actually doing things in the workplace, this means that we take the most risks in general. The owners and investors in some major construction project or other business do not have to even be on site, much less taking the physical or mental risks involved in actually doing something. Workers also don't get bailouts the same way that large institutions and their owners do. The people whose risky investments did fail and nearly take the economy with it are doing quite fine and are not in prison, and many financial criminals who did go to prison in decades past are still doing quite fine (Michael Milken and Andrew Fastow are still rather successful, actually). We take the risk of being fired, losing our homes, having poor nutrition, going to prison, and so on. If due compensation went to those who take risks, workers should be those first and foremost compensated. But again, risks taken do not entitle anyone to anything. It's just an ad hoc argument made to justify an incredibly broken and destructive system.[/QUOTE] Workers do take risks, yes. However, we have regulatory agencies such as OSHA to keep work zones safe for those involved and employers who don't follow safety and hazards codes are at risk of getting pegged in the ass by them. This also affects their reputation, a employer who is known to be cheap and endanger workers would be unlikely to keep many people who would go elsewhere. Wages are still to be negotiated by the worker and employer, and that is something I will not budge on.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;50070129]Workers do take risks, yes. However, we have regulatory agencies such as OSHA to keep work zones safe for those involved and employers who don't follow safety and hazards codes are at risk of getting pegged in the ass by them. This also affects their reputation, a employer who is known to be cheap and endanger workers would be unlikely to keep many people who would go elsewhere. Wages are still to be negotiated by the worker and employer, and that is something I will not budge on.[/QUOTE] Why? The employer has all the power. Why empower them even further
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