Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

[LynahFan]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Just don't expect any loyalty from either capital or labor. And for God's sake not from management.

I really like my current job, but -- I'm always looking, and I always have an eye on resume building and networking when I choose projects. Nobody in management or ownership gives a crap about you and you owe them nothing. The second you become cost sub-optimal they will put a bullet in your head. Just bear that in mind and you'll be fine.

It's nothing personal, Sonny. It's just business.

Precisely so. I see it exactly the way management sees it: I work for LynahFan, Inc. and, while I tend to have just one long-term employer client at a time, all options are always on the table. People who fail to grasp this reality and expect that a company will take care of them over a lifetime of employment are incredibly naive.

You never have as much negotiating power as those brief moments where you are still working for A and B makes an initial offer. Failing to take advantage of those moments (whether you remain with A or move to B) will cost you tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars over your career.

Rule #1: Everything is for sale.
Corollary: Everything is negotiable.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Precisely so. I see it exactly the way management sees it: I work for LynahFan, Inc. and, while I tend to have just one long-term employer client at a time, all options are always on the table. People who fail to grasp this reality and expect that a company will take care of them over a lifetime of employment are incredibly naive.

You never have as much negotiating power as those brief moments where you are still working for A and B makes an initial offer. Failing to take advantage of those moments (whether you remain with A or move to B) will cost you tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars over your career.

Rule #1: Everything is for sale.
Corollary: Everything is negotiable.

This. All you kids (in your 20's) read this and listen to it. Don't make the same mistakes I have made.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

This. All you kids (in your 20's) read this and listen to it. Don't make the same mistakes I have made.

Don't worry, I have no intentions for voting for Obozo.

[Kepler]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

You never have as much negotiating power as those brief moments where you are still working for A and B makes an initial offer. Failing to take advantage of those moments (whether you remain with A or move to B) will cost you tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars over your career.

Rule #1: Everything is for sale.
Corollary: Everything is negotiable.

Everyone should be taught this before they apply for their first real job, and they should bear it in mind during their entire working life. There may have been a time when companies felt a non-zero measure of responsibility for the welfare of their workers, but, for every company larger than a 2- or 3-employee Mom and Pop, those days were destroyed when Harvard MBAs were unleashed upon the landscape. Companies now will screw their employees in sociopathic ways without batting an eye, sadly intoning all along that they must to remain competitive. Your employer is not your friend. Use them -- they're already using you.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Wait until they find out audit funding hasn't gone down, heck it's probably increased... http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/...-is-not-fixed/

[Kepler]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Wait until they find out audit funding hasn't gone down, heck it's probably increased... http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/...-is-not-fixed/

I love how that article refers to tax cheats as "aggressive taxpayers." Oh Forbes; never change.

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

When I read the following paragraph, I thought, "wow, this is a great summary of so much of our problems!"

As the late economist and social thinker Mancur Olson taught, political bargains of the past are the burden of the future. The U.S., like California, is a country that has grown old thinking of itself as young. By now, we’re one of the world’s most aged experiments in representative government, and increasingly paralyzed by an accretion of calcified institutions like Social Security or California’s water politics. [emphasis added]

[joecct]

When I read the following paragraph, I thought, "wow, this is a great summary of so much of our problems!"

So - how do you fix it?

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

So - how do you fix it?

Tax cuts for the rich!

[ScoobyDoo]

Tax cuts for the rich!

The universal fixed upper. Works every time.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

The universal fixed upper. Works every time.

Funny thing is... a tax cut, no matter where, will always affect the rich. Welcome to Progressive Tax Brackets 101.

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

The universal fixed upper. Works every time.

I really think cutting Romney's taxes would have helped do something about all the snow we got in New England this winter.

[Kepler]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I'm currently reading Henry Hazlitt, who is one of the people Fishy et al. get all their economic ideas from except they don't know that because it's not in WSJ editorials.

The thing about Hazlitt is he writes beautifully and clearly, and I'd go so far as to say he is highly intelligent -- a sort of cut rate William James. Somehow his work, which is reasonable albeit limited by his time period, helped create an entire industry of epsilon minus free marketeer squawkers (to give some idea, the quote on the book jacket is from Ayn Rand, who wasn't intellectually fit to wash Hazlitt's socks).

Interesting ideas from interesting people are sometimes (often? always?) adopted, dumbed down, and then applied ham-fistedly by less able, uninteresting people. I doubt Marx would have been wild about most of the folks who flew his standard, either.

tl; dr: Read Hazlitt. If you're a conservative you'll eat it up like crack; if you're a liberal you'll see the limitations but it's always a good idea to know thy enemy. Plus, as I said, he can write, and that's always a pleasure. Even Saint Augustine is worth reading just for the pleasure of good writing.

[unofan]

When I read the following paragraph, I thought, "wow, this is a great summary of so much of our problems!"

Social security is a red herring. Even without making any other changes, it can still remain solvent at about 75-80 percent of current benefits. If you make even a few relatively minor changes (raising or removing the income limit on the contribution tax side, increasing the retirement age by one or two years) it becomes solvent at current benefit levels indefinitely.

California's water situation is only a government problem if you believe in climate change. Otherwise it's simply a natural disaster. So I'm surprised to see it being thought of in those terms.

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

So - how do you fix it?

Regarding California's water "problems," one fix that probably would work would be to charge people based on how much water they use. They don't do that now, instead it is a political dogfight free-for-all over who can get the most subsidized water usage at the expense of everyone else.