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Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

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Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

FlagDUDE08 said:
It's always funny how people want to just throw more money at the problem, yet that just causes inflation and essentially "kicks the can down the road". Perhaps the answer is to deflate.
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Probably the number one thing I've learned about humanity is that most everything that matters is determined by competition. Sure the McDonalds hamburger you buy isn't...but everything around it is. You can't find a job? You better compete better. You can't find workers? You better compete better. You can't find a spouse? You better compete better. You can't get people to move to your city? You better compete better.

Today's business climate is tight...so you can hope to access a new worker pool. But in the end, if your not competitive...you will suffer.
 
Kepler said:
This makes sense to me.
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The Greek problem is the natural consequence of having a unified currency without a unified government. Or more aptly, having a unified monetary policy without a unified fiscal policy.

The same thing would've happened to Mississippi and many other states here, probably multiple times over, were it not for the federal government and its inherent subsidizing effect of the poorer states.
 
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Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

5mn_Major said:
Probably the number one thing I've learned about humanity is that most everything that matters is determined by competition. Sure the McDonalds hamburger you buy isn't...but everything around it is. You can't find a job? You better compete better. You can't find workers? You better compete better. You can't find a spouse? You better compete better. You can't get people to move to your city? You better compete better.

Today's business climate is tight...so you can hope to access a new worker pool. But in the end, if your not competitive...you will suffer.
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Congratulations on defending every reason to not up the minimum wage. It's not limited to humans, either; you see competition in the animal kingdom all the time.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

unofan said:
The Greek problem is the natural consequence of having a unified currency without a unified government. Or more aptly, having a unified monetary policy without a unified fiscal policy.

The same thing would've happened to Mississippi and many other states here, probably multiple times over, were it not for the federal government and its inherent subsidizing effect of the poorer states.
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I'd put Mississippi in the "crazy but not stupid" section. They had to put in the subsidies because of all of the affirmative action whining. The people found out the subsidies were colour blind, so they decided to take advantage of them. After all, what's the path of least resistance? You'd actually be surprised to see what would happen if you dumped the subsidies. You might actually have not only productivity, but people would actually be competitive when it comes to the cost of housing, food, and whatnot.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

ScoobyDoo said:
That appears to be the NUMBER ONE thing that businesses will not do. I remember the welder shortage that was so huge here in Minnesota and Iowa. They never really raised the wages enough to fix the problem. I read of a number of guys who got the credentials and then found out how much they'd get paid to work in a dirty environment and stare through the helmet at that white light all day and they pretty much said, hell no.
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So long as a welder is willing to say yes to working for peanuts, the rates will stay. And no, violating the Taft-Hartley Act is not the answer, either, as unions just drive up the price and don't give anything to their clients in return. It's basically, to put it in sports terms, an insane agent fee.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

FlagDUDE08 said:
So long as a welder is willing to say yes to working for peanuts, the rates will stay. And no, violating the Taft-Hartley Act is not the answer, either, as unions just drive up the price and don't give anything to their clients in return. It's basically, to put it in sports terms, an insane agent fee.
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No, the companies just go without or farm it out to China. They cried wolf. Folks responded. Folks didn't really get paid, so they went elsewhere for the labor. It's pretty much the same in IT/IS right now.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Ok, so I hadn't been keeping score on this austerity list. I didn't fully understand what was going on. So here's a full scorecard as best I can tell:
  1. Package 1 (2010):
    • Freeze in the salaries of all government employees
    • 10% cut in bonuses
    • Cuts in overtime workers, public employees
    • Cuts in work-related travel
  2. Package 2 (March 2010):
    • 30% cuts in Christmas, Easter and leave of absence bonuses
    • a further 12% cut in public bonuses
    • a 7% cut in the salaries of public and private employees
    • a rise of VAT from 4.5% to 5%, from 9% to 10% and from 19% to 21%
    • a rise of tax on petrol to 15%
    • a rise in the (already existing) taxes on imported cars of up to 10%–30%
    • among others.
  3. Package 3 (June 2010):
    • Public Sector Reform
    • The number of public-owned companies shall be reduced from 6,000 to 2,000.
    • Limit of €500 per month to 13th and 14th month salaries of public employees; abolished for employees receiving over €3,000 a month.
    • 8% cut on public sector allowances (in addition to the two previous austerity packages)
    • 3% pay cut for DEKO (public sector utilities) employees.
    • Public sector limit of €1,000 introduced to bi-annual bonus, abolished entirely for those earning over €3,000 a month.
    • The number of municipalities shall shrink from 1,000 to 400.
    • Pension Reform
    • Limit of €800 per month to 13th and 14th month pension instalments; abolished for pensioners receiving over €2,500 a month.
    • Return of a special tax on high pensions.
    • Equalisation of men's and women's pension age limits. Women's retirement age increased from 60 to 65.
    • General pension age has not changed, but a mechanism has been introduced to scale them to life expectancy changes.
    • Average retirement age for public sector workers will be increased from 61 to 65.
    • Tax Reform
    • VAT rises to 23% (from 19%), 11% (from 9%) and 5.5% (from 4%).
    • Extraordinary taxes imposed on company profits.
    • Rise in the value of property (and thus higher taxes).
    • 10% rise in luxury taxes and sin taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, and fuel.
    • 10% additional rise for all imported cars.
    • Labor Market Reforms
    • Changes were planned to the laws governing lay-offs and overtime pay.
    • A financial stability fund has been created.
  4. Package 4 (June 2011):
    • Raising €50 billion from privatisations and sales of government property.
    • Tax Reform
    • Increasing taxes for those with a yearly income of over €8,000.
    • An extra tax for those with a yearly income of over €12,000.
    • Increasing VAT in the housing industry.
    • An extra tax of 2% for combating unemployment.
    • Pension Reform
    • Lower pension payments ranging from 6% to 14% from the previous 4% to 10%.
    • Creation of a special agency responsible with exploiting government property, and others.
  5. Package 5 (February 2012):
    • 22% cut in minimum wage from the current €750 per month.
    • Holiday wage bonuses (one extra months of full wage being paid each year) are permanently cancelled.
    • 150,000 jobs cut from state sector by 2015, of which 15,000 shall be cut by the end of 2012.
    • Pension cuts worth €300 million in 2012.
    • Changes to laws to make it easier to lay off workers.
    • Health and defence spending cuts.
    • Industry sectors are given the right to negotiate lower wages depending on economic development.
    • Opening up closed professions to allow for more competition, particularly in the health, tourism, and real estate sectors.
    • Privatisations worth €15 billion by 2015, including Greek gas companies DEPA and DESFA. In the medium term, the goal remains at €50 billion.
  6. Package 6 (October 2012):
    • Bank recapitalisation
    • Tax reform
    • Labor market reform
    • Pension reform
    • The "Midterm fiscal plan 2013–16".
  7. Package 7 (July 2013):
    ????
  8. Newest Measures:
    TBD

All from Wikipedia.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

dxmnkd316 said:
I'd bet many of the high-end welders here on site probably make more than I do.
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They make more than Scooby does, thats for sure. :) Most good welders are never in the same place very long so it means living out of a hotel or out of a travel trailer, motor home etc.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Maybe. Almost all of the welders I know have been on site for years.
 
walrus said:
They make more than Scooby does, thats for sure. :) Most good welders are never in the same place very long so it means living out of a hotel or out of a travel trailer, motor home etc.
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Not in Alaska. Vast majority of them up here work on the North Slope 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.
 
Jimjamesak said:
Not in Alaska. Vast majority of them up here work on the North Slope 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.
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So they are home 50 percent of the time? Oil rig guys would be similar. The guys I know travel all over, work a job out of state, come back, hangout, start over again somewhere else.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

5mn_Major said:
Probably the number one thing I've learned about humanity is that most everything that matters is determined by competition....in the end, if you're not competitive...you will suffer.
Click to expand...

and "competition" is not limited to "humanity": isn't it also the basis of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection?
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

joecct said:
Pat on the Pope economist: http://m.townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2015/07/14/is-capitalism-diabolic-n2024927
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It really says something about the power of ideology that even an apparently sincerely religious person like Pat, when faced with the obvious contradiction between capitalist values and Christian values, chooses the former.

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." -- Matthew 6:24
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

FreshFish said:
and "competition" is not limited to "humanity": isn't it also the basis of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection?
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Very true. Better said, competition is a basis for life. In life, cooperation does occur in smaller family/social units. More total cooperation is a recent human phenomenon...in large part driven by the teachings of Jesus.

But if you're focused on how to have things go well for you...remember to address your ability to 'compete'. Then you have the ability 'cooperate' on your own terms.
 
Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

5mn_Major said:
More total cooperation is a recent human phenomenon...in large part driven by the teachings of Jesus.
Click to expand...

The Chinese and Indians would like 5000 years of words with you... ;)
 
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