Why are greedy companies paying 2x minimum wage in ND for entry level?

[Nice Squirrel]

Why is greedy Wal-Mart paying so much more than minimum wage for these entry level jobs at its Williston, ND store?

I mean, all Wal-Mart has to do is say accept the job at minimum wage or starve, no?

A good illustration of why companies like unemployment to be high. When it's low, like in ND, they have no choice but to pay higher wages.

I guess the next question is how will you explain walmart being able to keep its stores open in ND while paying such a high wage since there have been warnings about mass layoffs in low-skilled jobs if the MW gets raised to just over $10/hr.

I'm sure you will find the prices in the Williston store to be considerably higher than elsewhere.

On what basis?

The only thing that is probably much more expensive in Williston is housing. North Dakota is suffering from a housing shortage right now.

Yep. They have work camps where workers are housed in ATCOs which are basically shipping containers that house 4-8 people. I stayed in such camps in Alaska. Some camps are surrounded with barbed wire and entry controlled to keep out hookers, drug dealers and such.

The ATCO Lodge open camp:

Fancy!

 

[Bronzeage]

Why is greedy Wal-Mart paying so much more than minimum wage for these entry level jobs at its Williston, ND store?

I mean, all Wal-Mart has to do is say accept the job at minimum wage or starve, no?

No.

Because in Williston ND there are only 20000 people, and at the moment more than enough demand for jobs to go around.

Plop that WalMart elsewhere in the state - say the Fort Bethold Indian Reservation (unemployment rate 42%) - and they could and would say that.

Wal-mart is competing with the ND oil fields for labor. I have a friend in Minot, ND. Ten years ago, her rent on a 3 bedroom apartment was $450. Today, it is $2100. This puts a $17/hr job at Wal-mart in a different light.

 

[untermensche]

Wal-mart is competing with the ND oil fields for labor. I have a friend in Minot, ND. Ten years ago, her rent on a 3 bedroom apartment was $450. Today, it is $2100. This puts a $17/hr job at Wal-mart in a different light.

Not really.

WalMart, and almost all US corporations, pays it's workers as little as possible.

In a few places "as little as possible" is significantly more than it is in other places.

 

[Bronzeage]

Wal-mart is competing with the ND oil fields for labor. I have a friend in Minot, ND. Ten years ago, her rent on a 3 bedroom apartment was $450. Today, it is $2100. This puts a $17/hr job at Wal-mart in a different light.

Not really.

WalMart, and almost all US corporations, pays it's workers as little as possible.

In a few places "as little as possible" is significantly more than it is in other places.

This is true, but I generally pay as little as possible when I buy things, so it evens out.

 

[ksen]

Yeah, but you don't have the market power to actually hurt people as you try to lowball them.

 

[untermensche]

Wal-mart is competing with the ND oil fields for labor. I have a friend in Minot, ND. Ten years ago, her rent on a 3 bedroom apartment was $450. Today, it is $2100. This puts a $17/hr job at Wal-mart in a different light.

Not really.

WalMart, and almost all US corporations, pays it's workers as little as possible.

In a few places "as little as possible" is significantly more than it is in other places.

This is true, but I generally pay as little as possible when I buy things, so it evens out.

You could pay the same and workers could be paid better.

But of course that would mean those WalMart billionaires would get less.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Think of the billionaires and what it would mean to them if they could not trickle down upon us.

 

[Bronzeage]

Wal-mart is competing with the ND oil fields for labor. I have a friend in Minot, ND. Ten years ago, her rent on a 3 bedroom apartment was $450. Today, it is $2100. This puts a $17/hr job at Wal-mart in a different light.

Not really.

WalMart, and almost all US corporations, pays it's workers as little as possible.

In a few places "as little as possible" is significantly more than it is in other places.

This is true, but I generally pay as little as possible when I buy things, so it evens out.

You could pay the same and workers could be paid better.

But of course that would mean those WalMart billionaires would get less.

On the other hand, I pay taxes which fund the government benefits for which low wage Wal-mart workers are eligible, because their pay puts them below the poverty level.

 

[ksen]

Think of the billionaires and what it would mean to them if they could not trickle down upon us.

The trickle down money shot is the best kind.

 

[untermensche]

On the other hand, I pay taxes which fund the government benefits for which low wage Wal-mart workers are eligible, because their pay puts them below the poverty level.

If companies just paid workers fairly, instead of paying them as little as possible, we could reduce the need for government services greatly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, when you live in a place like that on-line becomes a lot more attractive.

And why do you think prices at other retailers will be any less??

Perhaps because I work in corporate retail, in a small northern city and Walmart does not own the market on the lowest prices, they just have the people brain-washed into thinking so. I have checked prices across the board at several stores on similar products, sometimes identical brand names, and noted that many times other stores offer better specials and often even on everyday items, the difference is negligible.

Still, this is Canada, and I cannot speak to the same situations in the USA.

I do agree that Wal-Mart isn't always the cheapest by any means.

However, that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that costs are high there. Wal-Mart isn't going to be alone in this.

- - - Updated - - -

Wal-mart is competing with the ND oil fields for labor. I have a friend in Minot, ND. Ten years ago, her rent on a 3 bedroom apartment was $450. Today, it is $2100. This puts a $17/hr job at Wal-mart in a different light.

Exactly.

- - - Updated - - -

On the other hand, I pay taxes which fund the government benefits for which low wage Wal-mart workers are eligible, because their pay puts them below the poverty level.

If companies just paid workers fairly, instead of paying them as little as possible, we could reduce the need for government services greatly.

The biggest factor in poverty is how much people work, not in the hourly rate.

 

[ksen]

However, that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that costs are high there.

Except they aren't. (see previously posted citation which you probably won't since it looks like you ignored it the first time)

 

[untermensche]

The biggest factor in poverty is how much people work, not in the hourly rate.

The biggest factor today is that the cost of living keeps going up but wages, for most, in real terms, have stagnated or declined over the last 40 years. At the same time the government is lowering benefits aimed at the poor.

The ability of people to pay their bills is getting harder and harder.

This is capitalism working efficiently as it was designed. Designed by the rich for the rich.

 

[doubtingt]

I really am astonished at the replies here. It's obviously a rhetorical question yet most of the responses seem to be taking it literally and offering an explanation. And some of the explanations are actually fairly accurate. But, of course, the obvious answer is that there is a labor shortage in and Walmart has to pay higher wages because there are many other jobs in ND that pay more than Walmart does.

Good up to this point.

And Walmart can afford to pay these higher wages because they can charge higher prices because of all those higher paying jobs in the area.

Yeah, but that includes Wallmart's own employees who can pay higher prices because Wallmart pays them more. IOW, Wallmart is not merely reacting to local economic conditions, they are impacting those conditions. What consumers can afford to pay for goods at Wallmart is influenced by what Wallmart pays their employees. This is true at Wallmarts everywhere.

And those other higher paying jobs pay more because they are higher skilled.

Eh, many of the Wallmart jobs are more skilled than many of the oil jobs, which are often menial labor, but grueling and dangerous. Thus, the high pay of the oil jobs is more about low regional demand for the jobs forcing the oil companies to pay higher salaries.

Which means, of course, that Walmart can't pay higher wages in other parts of the country because they can't raise prices elsewhere in the country and still stay in business because there isn't an abundance of highly skilled, high-paying jobs elsewhere in the country.

This is where the nonsense and your faith-based religion come in. Economic conditions can force employers to do some things they'd prefer not to, but usually large corporations have plenty of flexibility and choice in what they do and they often could easily afford to pay their employees more than they do and still compete and still profit. If no one will do the work for poverty wages (what Wallmart usually pays), then of course they are forced to pay more than poverty wages. However, they are never being forced to pay as little as they do in most of their stores. That is a unethical choice they make to increase their own excessive wealth and massive profits by offering as little as they can get away with. Almost no Wallmarts are remotely close to a paying wages any where near levels that would make the store unprofitable. They have huge room for choice based upon their personal ethics. The invisible hand and market forces have little to do with it and they cannot escape moral responsibility by appealing to such religious superstition.

 

[boneyard bill]

doubting writes:

Good up to this point.

And Walmart can afford to pay these higher wages because they can charge higher prices because of all those higher paying jobs in the area.

Yeah, but that includes Wallmart's own employees who can pay higher prices because Wallmart pays them more. IOW, Wallmart is not merely reacting to local economic conditions, they are impacting those conditions. What consumers can afford to pay for goods at Wallmart is influenced by what Wallmart pays their employees. This is true at Wallmarts everywhere

.

So what is your solution? Have Walmart raise their prices so they can pay their employees more and then charge the more? I don't see how that would benefit anyone but Walmart's competitors.

And those other higher paying jobs pay more because they are higher skilled.

Eh, many of the Wallmart jobs are more skilled than many of the oil jobs, which are often menial labor, but grueling and dangerous. Thus, the high pay of the oil jobs is more about low regional demand for the jobs forcing the oil companies to pay higher salaries.

Of course, the CEO of Walmart makes a lot more than the cashier. But the subject of this post was about those low-skilled jobs. Admittedly, not all of those high-paying jobs in North Dakota are necessarily higher skilled, but a good part of them are. Meanwhile, some of those jobs don't require a whole lot of skills they just require you to do back-breaking outside in a North Dakota winter. Needless to say many workers would prefer to work indoors for Walmart for less money.

Which means, of course, that Walmart can't pay higher wages in other parts of the country because they can't raise prices elsewhere in the country and still stay in business because there isn't an abundance of highly skilled, high-paying jobs elsewhere in the country.

This is where the nonsense and your faith-based religion come in. Economic conditions can force employers to do some things they'd prefer not to, but usually large corporations have plenty of flexibility and choice in what they do and they often could easily afford to pay their employees more than they do and still compete and still profit. If no one will do the work for poverty wages (what Wallmart usually pays), then of course they are forced to pay more than poverty wages. However, they are never being forced to pay as little as they do in most of their stores. That is a unethical choice they make to increase their own excessive wealth and massive profits by offering as little as they can get away with. Almost no Wallmarts are remotely close to a paying wages any where near levels that would make the store unprofitable. They have huge room for choice based upon their personal ethics. The invisible hand and market forces have little to do with it and they cannot escape moral responsibility by appealing to such religious superstition.

This doesn't have anything to do with any economic religion. It is the responsibility of Walmart management to manage their company for the benefit of the owners, and that means maximizing the profit for the owners of Walmart. There is no reason why they should pay their employees more than they have to and what they have to pay is largely a matter of the skill-level of the employee. You cannot pay workers more than they produce.

Now you may want to claim that the system is unfair, and I would agree that, in the abstract, there is no reason why we should allow a system to survive that allows a guy like Sam Walton to accumulate billions of dollars while others can barely squeak by. But the world is not abstract. The fact is that the system allows poor people to shop at Walmart and purchase products far cheaper than they previously could. So poor people benefit from the existence of Walmart just as poor people benefitted from the existence of Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and countless other multi-billionaires. And the simple fact is that if you chose to eliminate profits or even chose to put some cap on profits, you alter the system unalterably. It would no longer work the way it does and millions of poor and low-income people would lose out.

The richest men in world such as Walton, Rockefeller, and Ford made their fortunes offering cheap products to ordinary people. I'm sure the owners of Tiffanies are rich, but they are no where near as rich as the Waltons. They specialized in "everyday high prices" and catered to people who don't care what the price is. I could never afford their stuff. I'm glad Sam Walton came along.

 

[ksen]

This doesn't have anything to do with any economic religion. It is the responsibility of Walmart management to manage their company for the benefit of the owners, and that means maximizing the profit for the owners of Walmart.

The myth of shareholder value is an economic religion. It is the curtain which hides the real Oz from us. "Maximizing shareholder value" is a euphemism for enriching the executives with as much as they can take.

Time to put an end to the cult of shareholder value

Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever, thinks American-style capitalism is broken, and he blames, in good part, the cult of shareholder value that has been all the rage since the 1980s. Since taking the helm in 2009 of the Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant that owns Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap and Lipton tea, Polman has eliminated quarterly profit reports, refused to give earnings guidance to analysts and informed hedge funds that they will not be indulged.

He has railed against the theories of economists and biz-school gurus like Milton Friedman, Michael Jensen and Lucian Bebchuk, the high apostles of shareholder power and democracy. “The very essence of capitalism is under threat as business is now seen as a personal wealth accumulator,” Polman said recently. “We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest.”

Shareholder Value disciples such as David Einhorn are able to use the tenets of Shareholder Value to force companies like Apple to use the vast, vast majority of its liquid assets (over $121 billion back in 2012) to do unproductive things like payout huge dividends or engage in one the worst uses of corporate money: stock buyback programs.

If anything, the obsession with “maximizing” shareholder value has taken on the status of a major religion, so much so that shareholders who have owned a stock for a week—hedge funds, for instance—are demanding instant spoils.

In 2010, hedge fund manager extraordinaire David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital scooped up the first of his now 2.4 million Apple shares and, dazzled by the company’s treasure chest of liquid assets—more than $121 billion (all currency in U.S. dollars) at the end of fiscal 2012—launched his gunboats. Apple CEO Tim Cook at first paid little attention to Einhorn’s demands. But he finally relented earlier this year, pledging $100 billion to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends by the end of 2015. Welcome to the “financialization” of a company that had a history of putting innovation first, shareholders second.

The myth of shareholder value, only around since the 1980s when it was first handed down from the top of Mt. Chicago School of Economics to the executive masses by its high priest Milton Friedman, gives us events like Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez.

Shareholder value thinking is endemic in the business world today. Fifty years ago, if you had asked the directors or CEO of a large public company what the company’s purpose was, you might have been told the corporation had many purposes: to provide equity investors with solid returns, but also to build great products, to provide decent livelihoods for employees, and to contribute to the community and the nation. Today, you are likely to be told the company has but one purpose, to maximize its shareholders’ wealth. This sort of thinking drives directors and executives to run public firms like BP with a relentless focus on raising stock price. In the quest to “unlock shareholder value” they sell key assets, fire loyal employees, and ruthlessly squeeze the workforce that remains; cut back on product support, customer assistance, and research and development; delay replacing outworn, outmoded, and unsafe equipment; shower CEOs with stock options and expensive pay packages to “incentivize” them; drain cash reserves to pay large dividends and repurchase company shares, leveraging firms until they teeter on the brink of insolvency; and lobby regulators and Congress to change the law so they can chase short-term profits speculating in credit default swaps and other high-risk financial derivatives. They do these things even though many individual directors and executives feel uneasy about such strategies, intuiting that a single-minded focus on share price may not serve the interests of society, the company, or shareholders themselves.

Maximizing shareholder value should go the way of the Dodo bird. It is the engine that drives short term thinking among corporate executives. It leads to less and less innovation from corporations (see Apple example). It leads to environmental disaster since even though in the long run environmental and safety shortcuts will be much more expensive for the company, i.e. shareholders, in the short run it can be quite profitable.

And what class of people are the shareholders? Typically the upper executives have large chunks of company shares and have extravagant financial incentives to engage in short term Shareholder Value thinking.

There is no reason why they should pay their employees more than they have to

More than they have to according to whom?

and what they have to pay is largely a matter of the skill-level of the employee.

That's bullshit. What companies pay employees has very little to do with the skill level of the employee. It has to do with how little they can get away with paying.

You cannot pay workers more than they produce.

Marginal productivity? Another myth of the neoclassicals /Austrians that has no bearing in the real world of corporations and how they pay their employees. But, coincidentally(?), it does act as another awesome smokescreen behind which executives can hide their greed and malfeasance.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

The myth of shareholder value is an economic religion. It is the curtain which hides the real Oz from us. "Maximizing shareholder value" is a euphemism for enriching the executives with as much as they can take.

It is a religion sacrificing long term growth for short term gains. The main problem with converting from the system is that everyone's retirement is tied up in the game.

 

[boneyard bill]

The myth of shareholder value is an economic religion. It is the curtain which hides the real Oz from us. "Maximizing shareholder value" is a euphemism for enriching the executives with as much as they can take.

Time to put an end to the cult of shareholder value

Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever, thinks American-style capitalism is broken, and he blames, in good part, the cult of shareholder value that has been all the rage since the 1980s. Since taking the helm in 2009 of the Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant that owns Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap and Lipton tea, Polman has eliminated quarterly profit reports, refused to give earnings guidance to analysts and informed hedge funds that they will not be indulged.

He has railed against the theories of economists and biz-school gurus like Milton Friedman, Michael Jensen and Lucian Bebchuk, the high apostles of shareholder power and democracy. “The very essence of capitalism is under threat as business is now seen as a personal wealth accumulator,” Polman said recently. “We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest.”

Shareholder Value disciples such as David Einhorn are able to use the tenets of Shareholder Value to force companies like Apple to use the vast, vast majority of its liquid assets (over $121 billion back in 2012) to do unproductive things like payout huge dividends or engage in one the worst uses of corporate money: stock buyback programs.

If anything, the obsession with “maximizing” shareholder value has taken on the status of a major religion, so much so that shareholders who have owned a stock for a week—hedge funds, for instance—are demanding instant spoils.

In 2010, hedge fund manager extraordinaire David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital scooped up the first of his now 2.4 million Apple shares and, dazzled by the company’s treasure chest of liquid assets—more than $121 billion (all currency in U.S. dollars) at the end of fiscal 2012—launched his gunboats. Apple CEO Tim Cook at first paid little attention to Einhorn’s demands. But he finally relented earlier this year, pledging $100 billion to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends by the end of 2015. Welcome to the “financialization” of a company that had a history of putting innovation first, shareholders second.

The myth of shareholder value, only around since the 1980s when it was first handed down from the top of Mt. Chicago School of Economics to the executive masses by its high priest Milton Friedman, gives us events like Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez.

Shareholder value thinking is endemic in the business world today. Fifty years ago, if you had asked the directors or CEO of a large public company what the company’s purpose was, you might have been told the corporation had many purposes: to provide equity investors with solid returns, but also to build great products, to provide decent livelihoods for employees, and to contribute to the community and the nation. Today, you are likely to be told the company has but one purpose, to maximize its shareholders’ wealth. This sort of thinking drives directors and executives to run public firms like BP with a relentless focus on raising stock price. In the quest to “unlock shareholder value” they sell key assets, fire loyal employees, and ruthlessly squeeze the workforce that remains; cut back on product support, customer assistance, and research and development; delay replacing outworn, outmoded, and unsafe equipment; shower CEOs with stock options and expensive pay packages to “incentivize” them; drain cash reserves to pay large dividends and repurchase company shares, leveraging firms until they teeter on the brink of insolvency; and lobby regulators and Congress to change the law so they can chase short-term profits speculating in credit default swaps and other high-risk financial derivatives. They do these things even though many individual directors and executives feel uneasy about such strategies, intuiting that a single-minded focus on share price may not serve the interests of society, the company, or shareholders themselves.

Maximizing shareholder value should go the way of the Dodo bird. It is the engine that drives short term thinking among corporate executives. It leads to less and less innovation from corporations (see Apple example). It leads to environmental disaster since even though in the long run environmental and safety shortcuts will be much more expensive for the company, i.e. shareholders, in the short run it can be quite profitable.

And what class of people are the shareholders? Typically the upper executives have large chunks of company shares and have extravagant financial incentives to engage in short term Shareholder Value thinking.

There is no reason why they should pay their employees more than they have to

More than they have to according to whom?

and what they have to pay is largely a matter of the skill-level of the employee.

That's bullshit. What companies pay employees has very little to do with the skill level of the employee. It has to do with how little they can get away with paying.

You cannot pay workers more than they produce.

Marginal productivity? Another myth of the neoclassicals /Austrians that has no bearing in the real world of corporations and how they pay their employees. But, coincidentally(?), it does act as another awesome smokescreen behind which executives can hide their greed and malfeasance.

You're talking apples and oranges. The article does not say that corporations should not maximize profits. It says they shouldn't be taking extraordinary measures to maximize short-term profits. I don't disagree with that at all. Corporate buybacks of treasury stock is all the rage right now, but why? Because they can borrow nearly interest-free due to the Fed's low interest rate policy, buy back their shares and increase the share price and their earnings per share number. All artificial crap that does the economy no good. But it goes back, for the most part, to the usual misguided Fed policies.

Yes, low interest rates stimulate. But WHAT do they stimulate? That is beyond the power of the Fed to divine. Only after their policies have failed do they realize that they have stimulating the wrong thing. (Assuming they actually intended to stimulate the economy in the first place).

 

[laughing dog]

The myth of shareholder value is an economic religion. It is the curtain which hides the real Oz from us. "Maximizing shareholder value" is a euphemism for enriching the executives with as much as they can take.

Time to put an end to the cult of shareholder value

Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever, thinks American-style capitalism is broken, and he blames, in good part, the cult of shareholder value that has been all the rage since the 1980s. Since taking the helm in 2009 of the Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant that owns Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap and Lipton tea, Polman has eliminated quarterly profit reports, refused to give earnings guidance to analysts and informed hedge funds that they will not be indulged.

He has railed against the theories of economists and biz-school gurus like Milton Friedman, Michael Jensen and Lucian Bebchuk, the high apostles of shareholder power and democracy. “The very essence of capitalism is under threat as business is now seen as a personal wealth accumulator,” Polman said recently. “We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest.”

Shareholder Value disciples such as David Einhorn are able to use the tenets of Shareholder Value to force companies like Apple to use the vast, vast majority of its liquid assets (over $121 billion back in 2012) to do unproductive things like payout huge dividends or engage in one the worst uses of corporate money: stock buyback programs.

If anything, the obsession with “maximizing” shareholder value has taken on the status of a major religion, so much so that shareholders who have owned a stock for a week—hedge funds, for instance—are demanding instant spoils.

In 2010, hedge fund manager extraordinaire David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital scooped up the first of his now 2.4 million Apple shares and, dazzled by the company’s treasure chest of liquid assets—more than $121 billion (all currency in U.S. dollars) at the end of fiscal 2012—launched his gunboats. Apple CEO Tim Cook at first paid little attention to Einhorn’s demands. But he finally relented earlier this year, pledging $100 billion to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends by the end of 2015. Welcome to the “financialization” of a company that had a history of putting innovation first, shareholders second.

The myth of shareholder value, only around since the 1980s when it was first handed down from the top of Mt. Chicago School of Economics to the executive masses by its high priest Milton Friedman, gives us events like Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez.

Shareholder value thinking is endemic in the business world today. Fifty years ago, if you had asked the directors or CEO of a large public company what the company’s purpose was, you might have been told the corporation had many purposes: to provide equity investors with solid returns, but also to build great products, to provide decent livelihoods for employees, and to contribute to the community and the nation. Today, you are likely to be told the company has but one purpose, to maximize its shareholders’ wealth. This sort of thinking drives directors and executives to run public firms like BP with a relentless focus on raising stock price. In the quest to “unlock shareholder value” they sell key assets, fire loyal employees, and ruthlessly squeeze the workforce that remains; cut back on product support, customer assistance, and research and development; delay replacing outworn, outmoded, and unsafe equipment; shower CEOs with stock options and expensive pay packages to “incentivize” them; drain cash reserves to pay large dividends and repurchase company shares, leveraging firms until they teeter on the brink of insolvency; and lobby regulators and Congress to change the law so they can chase short-term profits speculating in credit default swaps and other high-risk financial derivatives. They do these things even though many individual directors and executives feel uneasy about such strategies, intuiting that a single-minded focus on share price may not serve the interests of society, the company, or shareholders themselves.

Maximizing shareholder value should go the way of the Dodo bird. It is the engine that drives short term thinking among corporate executives. It leads to less and less innovation from corporations (see Apple example). It leads to environmental disaster since even though in the long run environmental and safety shortcuts will be much more expensive for the company, i.e. shareholders, in the short run it can be quite profitable.

And what class of people are the shareholders? Typically the upper executives have large chunks of company shares and have extravagant financial incentives to engage in short term Shareholder Value thinking.

There is no reason why they should pay their employees more than they have to

More than they have to according to whom?

and what they have to pay is largely a matter of the skill-level of the employee.

That's bullshit. What companies pay employees has very little to do with the skill level of the employee. It has to do with how little they can get away with paying.

You cannot pay workers more than they produce.

Marginal productivity? Another myth of the neoclassicals /Austrians that has no bearing in the real world of corporations and how they pay their employees. But, coincidentally(?), it does act as another awesome smokescreen behind which executives can hide their greed and malfeasance.

You're talking apples and oranges. The article does not say that corporations should not maximize profits. It says they shouldn't be taking extraordinary measures to maximize short-term profits. I don't disagree with that at all. Corporate buybacks of treasury stock is all the rage right now, but why? Because they can borrow nearly interest-free due to the Fed's low interest rate policy, buy back their shares and increase the share price and their earnings per share number. All artificial crap that does the economy no good. But it goes back, for the most part, to the usual misguided Fed policies.

Yes, low interest rates stimulate. But WHAT do they stimulate? That is beyond the power of the Fed to divine. Only after their policies have failed do they realize that they have stimulating the wrong thing. (Assuming they actually intended to stimulate the economy in the first place).

Substitute "the Fed" for "the Devil" and boneyard bill's economics resembles an evangelical preacher's sermon.