Wealth Redistribution or Wealth Return?

[RVonse]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer. What corporations get for their taxes is irrelevant to the issue.

I don't agree with you that corporate taxes are really paid by the customer but for the moment lets make your assumption correct. That makes this one of the most fairest taxes you can implement. Simply because no one is compelled to buy anything they do not want. If you don't want to pay the tax then don't buy or use the product (example: gasoline and toll bridges). Its capitalism at its finest and the American way.

 

[RVonse]

https://www.business.org/finance/accounting/hourly-wages-ceo-vs-employees/#:~:text=The average CEO earns $21.45 million dollars a,more than what an average employee earns ($51,394).

So, Dr. Z, where did your friend fit on the scale below of some of American's largest corporations? And, do the rest of you honestly feel that the CEOs on the list deserve these insane salaries. The only one who I would call worthy of his salary is Warren Buffet. Despite being ultra wealthy, Buffet has never appears to be very greedy. He's even admitted that he's wealthy because he's always had a special talent for choosing investments. His CEO salary of 380 K per year seems reasonable. The rest on the list are insane, imo.

Nobody is worth a salary of 54 million per year or for that matter, 7 or 8 million a year. I don't know how difficult their jobs might be, but a lot of jobs are very difficult. Look at. how low the average salary of their workers tends to be. Amazon's CEO gets almost 36 million per year, but the average employee salary is not quite 29K per year. It's crazy.

It takes a lot of education and skill to be a top neurosurgeon, but I doubt even the best of them make anything near what most of these CEOs make. It's not easy to be a roofer or an electrician and they are in short supply these days. I also read today that airline mechanics are in extremely short supply, as they are retiring in large numbers. My point is that there are lots of hard jobs that require special skills that are paid very low salaries. Some CEOs may be worth very large salaries, but imo, nobody is worth what those on the list are paid, with the exception of Buffet, who has always lived a "modest" lifestyle compared to his peers.

Company	CEO Name	CEO Salary	Average Employee Salary	Hours worked per week to earn CEO salary	Hours of work to equal 1 minute of CEO pay
Nike	John J. Donahoe II	$54,451,903	$30,877	70,540	29.4
Microsoft	Satya Nadella	$44,321,788	$84,000	21,106	8.8
Netflix	Reed Hastings	$43,226,024	$88,518	19,533	8.1
Amazon	Andy Jassy	$35,848,449	$28,875	49,660	20.7
JPMorgan Chase	James Dimon	$31,671,589	$37,333	33,934	14.1
Johnson & Johnson	Alex Gorsky	$29,590,472	$82,000	14,434	6
BlackRock	Laurence D. Fink	$27,356,432	$73,000	14,990	6.2
American Express	S. J. Squeri	$24,221,319	$67,262	14,404	6
Goldman Sachs Group	David M. Solomon	$23,940,657	$61,933	15,462	6.4
Procter & Gamble	David S. Taylor	$22,905,128	$72,186	12,692	5.3
Walmart	C. Douglas McMillon	$22,105,350	$24,960	35,425	14.8
3M	Michael F. Roman	$20,700,347	$72,909	11,357	4.7
Target	Brian C. Cornell	$19,755,188	$24,960	31,659	13.2
Coca-Cola	James Quincey	$18,383,474	$37,988	19,357	8.1
Delta Air Lines	Edward H. Bastian	$17,325,379	$51,982	13,332	5.6
Apple	Tim Cook	$14,769,259	$47,397	12,464	5.2
Starbucks	Kevin Johnson	$14,665,575	$22,880	25,639	10.7
Home Depot	Craig A. Menear	$13,995,092	$24,960	22,428	9.3
Walt Disney	Robert Chapek	$11,458,224	$79,000	5,802	2.4
FedEx	Frederick W. Smith	$11,138,548	$43,680	10,200	4.3
Marriott International	James F. Risoleo	$9,434,465	$27,040	13,956	5.8
Southwest Airlines	Gary C. Kelly	$9,235,103	$43,000	8,591	3.6
Costco Wholesale	W. Craig Jelinek	$8,016,200	$31,200	10,277	4.3
Alphabet	Sundar Pichai	$7,425,547	$82,000	3,622	1.5
Berkshire Hathaway	Warren Buffet	$380,328	$44,914	339	0.1

Robert Chapek should have paid Walt Disney corp $11 million for what he did to this once fine company. Not the other way around.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There's actually a good reason for not taxing corporations.

1) Taxing corporations is regressive. The tax actually falls on the customers of the corporation.

Do you have any evidence to support your claims? I ask because there is a substantial literature on the incidence of the corporate income tax, most of which concentrates on the effects on shareholders and workers, not customers.


Rethinking the Corporate Income Tax is a recent example.

Which doesn't address my point at all. They're talking about worker vs management, completely ignoring the fact that it's the customer that actually pays the tax.

Of course it addresses your hand waved point - if labor and capital pay the tax, the customer doesn’t. My larger point is there is little evidence to support the idea that the customer pays the tax. Point to a recent study that supports your view.

Your article doesn't even consider that it's passed along to the consumer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer.

Not all companies are corporations. How does that alter your argument?

Once again a derail when you don't want to address the point.

The structure doesn't matter. Any cost incurred by all players in an industry is going to be passed through to the consumer as higher prices. Companies are only differentiated where costs differ.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nobody is worth a salary of 54 million per year or for that matter, 7 or 8 million a year. I don't know how difficult their jobs might be, but a lot of jobs are very difficult. Look at. how low the average salary of their workers tends to be. Amazon's CEO gets almost 36 million per year, but the average employee salary is not quite 29K per year. It's crazy.

Marx strikes again--labor theory of value.

Nope, the value of an employee is the effect they will have on the bottom line. Let's look at Amazon. Gross revenue is about $500B. Who should run it?

Mr A: Wants $100M/yr.
Mr B: Wants $1M/yr.

However, your evaluation is that Mr A will do 0.1% better on producing revenue for the same costs.

Spoiler: Who do you hire?

You hire Mr A because you'll be up $401M/yr. A tiny difference in ability translates into a huge amount of money.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer. What corporations get for their taxes is irrelevant to the issue.

I don't agree with you that corporate taxes are really paid by the customer but for the moment lets make your assumption correct. That makes this one of the most fairest taxes you can implement. Simply because no one is compelled to buy anything they do not want. If you don't want to pay the tax then don't buy or use the product (example: gasoline and toll bridges). Its capitalism at its finest and the American way.

No. You're missing the forest for the trees. In the real world the poor spend 100% of their income. They're in effect paying 1.6% corporate income tax. A well to do person who invests half their income pays 0.8% corporate income tax. It's regressive. I do not like regressive taxes, period.

 

[laughing dog]

Well, that at least is true. It isn't luck. It isn't anything. Worker wages have kept up with inflation.

LOL - if you look at your link, it is clear that median wages did not keep up with inflation during most of the time period between 1979 and 2021. I count about 10 years where the real wage was at least the minimum wage of 1979.

Is this one of those "Ten equals seventeen for sufficiently large values of ten" situations?…..

No, it is basic reasoning. Whether or not wages “keep up with inflation” depends on what one means by “keep up” and the time frame. Clearly wages do not keep up annually - not even close (according to your linked graph). The long run trend is not helpful to workers who also live in the short run - losing ground 75% of the time typically a reduced standard of living during those periods.

As to the "real wages should rise at least at the rate of productivity increase" view, what do you mean by "productivity" and how would you go about measuring it?

Productivity is usually output per unit of input. If one looks at hourly wages or labor compensation, output per hour for a firm or real gdp per hour is a ball park figure. Ideally, parsing out the output due solely to the input is the best measure, but that is difficult to do.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The reason CEO's make so much money is because it's a difficult job.

It is not a difficult job. It is a specialized job, like a thousand other specialized jobs. It is a grueling job, like a thousand other grueling jobs. It is only “difficult” to the extent that it is like a thousand other “difficult” jobs.

Yes, it's a specialized job. Paid well because it's a rare skill.

Having a clarity of vision, being able to communicate that as well as being dependable is hard work. Top level CEO's have flawless track records.

LOL, wait - what?
Until they don’t. And then they still get their negotiated parachute? Or they allow themselves to get “politically outmaneuvered”? That’s not a flawless record is it?

And even the ones considered “top level” do not have flawless records. They make mistakes, have made mistakes, and they keep moving on.

It depends on your metric. With flawless I mean not folding under pressure. Staying confident and on top of things even in the face of utter disaster. It's ok to be wrong. Being a CEO is a bit like being a general. You have to take risks to get your shareholders profit. It's fundamental to the job. Taking risks means you sometimes fuck up. And that's ok. You can fail in an admirable way. That's what needs to be flawless. They need to be able to play the political game. It's important to be cool and gratious when you've been outmaneuvered. Handing over power in an orderly way when you've been booted after getting stabbed in the back, raises your re-hireability many times over. Quickly being able to burying the hatchet is an essential part of the job.

Good CEO's tend to be low ego kind of guys. Flashy show offs (like Trump) often quickly rise in an organisation (because they work hard). But they almost never reach the top. Those are not the guys you want in charge. They're more captains. The CEO's I know, don't care whether they are CEO's or not. They just enjoy the process. No matter what position in the hierarchy they have. They're totally cool with taking orders.

This is based on the people I know and my experiences of corporate life. I too have a high level corporate job. I'm not a CEO though.

I have so many annecdotes. Once at a festival I was running a restaurant (it's a long story) but one of Sweden's wealthiest people came by. It was a free restaurant. Gourmet food. Great wine. But free. He didn't ask if he could eat. He asked if he could be a waiter. And he did that the rest of the night. He did an awesome job. We were not friends. I didn't know him. I'd never even met him before. Aparently, this is the kind of guy he is. He regularly has a club in a Swedish castle. He personally invites all manner of weirdoes, and has them over for the weekend. Paying for all of it. Not rich people. Just seemingly randoms. Lots of artists and creatives. Top DJ's. These are supposedly the best parties in Sweden. No, I have not been invited... yet. The point is that this guy doesn't care about status.

Another guy who is a CEO, one day told his shareholders that he wasn't really feeling it anymore. His passion was gone. So he took a year, and was a subsistence farmer deep in the Swedish countryside. No electricity or running water for a year. He was alone. Once that year was up he returned to civilisation, got his job back and that was that. Then he called me and said that he has something important to say. He told me that he is an alcoholic and needed my support. Which is ironic since he'd spent a year isolated in the woods with no alcohol.

I'll stop there. I have many many stories like this.

These are remarkable people. A very very special kind of people. Yes, rare. Not just anyone can do this job.

Poor people tend to struggle with understanding what it takes to get rich.

I am not poor.

I don't know you at all. Why do you think I'm talking about you?

It's not that CEO's work harder than poor people. They just avoid wasting energy on bullshit.

Like a thousand other jobs.

Agreed.

That's the secret.

The secret is that there is a closely held club that self supports. To fail to acknowledge that leaves a lot of reality out in the dark.

Ehe.. No. That's just old Marxist mythic bollocks. It's actually really easy to become a CEO. Nothing is stopping you from going rags to riches. What prevents most people from becoming CEO's is that they don't think the sacrifices are worth it.

A pattern I've noticed is that when working class people climb to the top of the corporate ladder they often self-sabotage. It's like they don't think they deserve all this money, so they start dumb behaviours or conflicts, that fucks it up for them. This is pretty much standard. At some point they either stop self sabotaging or they drop out of the corporate world and become tantric gurus or some such stuff.

When Nietzsche talks about Übermensch and the slave mentality. He's not saying it's a hierarchy. The übermensch aren't better people. It's just that people really like being slaves. If you want to climb to the top you need to learn to be brutally honest with yourself and face all your own bullshit. That's very hard. Living in one's own constructed reality of self-delusion is very comforting. But if you do, you'll never be a CEO (unless you are Donald Trump and happened to be born extremely rich. But many CEO's aren't.)

Identifying what is bullshit and what isn't, is very hard.

So cops are worth tens of millions a year each, yah?

What?

 

[DrZoidberg]

added to the last: I just want to point out that there's a difference between a CEO who has it as a job, rather than inheritance. Lots of companies are family companies and they have therefor inherited their position. I'm not talking about those guys. That's a different eco-system. I'm talking about CEO's who are acting as mercenaries, ie they're making someone else money. These guys do make lots of money. But nothing near the people who own the companies they're CEO's of. The self made CEO's who founded their companies, like Bezos, Jobs, Gates etc, do fit into the people I am talking about, since they're the same kind of personality. Even though they genuinely are rich.

The guys who inherit their money and fanciness tend to operate in businesses where long term investments is the thing. In the modern IT-centered economy of today, means that they won't be in the 1%. The economy has expanded so fast and explosively since the introduction of IT, that the old money guys have become out competed. Or to quote an investor friend, "it's very turbulent at that top"

 

[Toni]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer. What corporations get for their taxes is irrelevant to the issue.

I don't agree with you that corporate taxes are really paid by the customer but for the moment lets make your assumption correct. That makes this one of the most fairest taxes you can implement. Simply because no one is compelled to buy anything they do not want. If you don't want to pay the tax then don't buy or use the product (example: gasoline and toll bridges). Its capitalism at its finest and the American way.

No. You're missing the forest for the trees. In the real world the poor spend 100% of their income. They're in effect paying 1.6% corporate income tax. A well to do person who invests half their income pays 0.8% corporate income tax. It's regressive. I do not like regressive taxes, period.

Now talk about how much of the salary of the CEO, CFO and other executives the poor pay.

Corporate taxes are a business expense. All business expenses are passed along to consumers. Regressively.

 

[Toni]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer.

Not all companies are corporations. How does that alter your argument?

Once again a derail when you don't want to address the point.

The structure doesn't matter. Any cost incurred by all players in an industry is going to be passed through to the consumer as higher prices. Companies are only differentiated where costs differ.

No derail, unless you count your focus on corporate taxes.

ALL expenses associated with any business are reflected in the price of whatever product is sold by the business.

We are all adults here. We understand how businesses operate. Some of us have a background in economics. Some of us believe they do, all evidence to the contrary.

 

[laughing dog]

There's actually a good reason for not taxing corporations.

1) Taxing corporations is regressive. The tax actually falls on the customers of the corporation.

Do you have any evidence to support your claims? I ask because there is a substantial literature on the incidence of the corporate income tax, most of which concentrates on the effects on shareholders and workers, not customers.


Rethinking the Corporate Income Tax is a recent example.

Which doesn't address my point at all. They're talking about worker vs management, completely ignoring the fact that it's the customer that actually pays the tax.

Of course it addresses your hand waved point - if labor and capital pay the tax, the customer doesn’t. My larger point is there is little evidence to support the idea that the customer pays the tax. Point to a recent study that supports your view.

Your article doesn't even consider that it's passed along to the consumer.

If is passed on to workers and shareholders then there is no reason to pass it on to customers.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer.

Not all companies are corporations. How does that alter your argument?

Once again a derail when you don't want to address the point.

The structure doesn't matter. Any cost incurred by all players in an industry is going to be passed through to the consumer as higher prices. Companies are only differentiated where costs differ.

The corporate income tax is levied on corporations. Not all companies in an industry are corporations. Since not all players in an industry are incurring the corporate income tax, your dictum (which is untrue on its face**) that any cost incurred by ALL players is going to be passed is inapplicable because the cost is not incurred by all players. So how does the existence of “non players “ in the industry affect your argument?

My question was not and is not a derail - I am trying to flesh out your economic reasoning so that it is applicable to the real world.


** it is an economic fallacy that all changes in cost are necessarily 100% passed on to consumers. That can only happen when customers are completely insensitive to price (a vertical demand curve) or producers are infinitely sensitive to price ( a flat supply curve).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer.

Not all companies are corporations. How does that alter your argument?

Once again a derail when you don't want to address the point.

The structure doesn't matter. Any cost incurred by all players in an industry is going to be passed through to the consumer as higher prices. Companies are only differentiated where costs differ.

No derail, unless you count your focus on corporate taxes.

ALL expenses associated with any business are reflected in the price of whatever product is sold by the business.

We are all adults here. We understand how businesses operate. Some of us have a background in economics. Some of us believe they do, all evidence to the contrary.

Taxes are a cost. It's passed through to the consumer.

I'm calling it a derail because it's trying to bring up an irrelevant point while avoiding answering the actual point.

 

[Toni]

Yes, corporations do factor the costs of running their businesses Into the price they charge for goods and services. Taxes are one such cost. So is labor. So are materials, utilities, rent/property taxes/mortgages, insurance, etc. So, of course is the cost of the lobbyists they hire to reduce their tax burdens, the cost of their tax attorneys and accountants, the costs of their association memberships and club memberships and the costs associated with entertaining clients and other people to benefit their business. Many of these expenses are written off against their tax bill.

What do corporations get for their taxes? Roads, utilities, police and fire department protection, an educated work force, and much, much more.

Any cost that all companies incur is passed on to the customer.

Not all companies are corporations. How does that alter your argument?

Once again a derail when you don't want to address the point.

The structure doesn't matter. Any cost incurred by all players in an industry is going to be passed through to the consumer as higher prices. Companies are only differentiated where costs differ.

No derail, unless you count your focus on corporate taxes.

ALL expenses associated with any business are reflected in the price of whatever product is sold by the business.

We are all adults here. We understand how businesses operate. Some of us have a background in economics. Some of us believe they do, all evidence to the contrary.

Taxes are a cost. It's passed through to the consumer.

I'm calling it a derail because it's trying to bring up an irrelevant point while avoiding answering the actual point.

Taxes ARE the point, or one of them. Our tax structure is supposed to ensure that those who benefit the most ( the wealthy) pay the most. Tax structure is seen by some as redistributing the wealth by taxing wealthy people to provide programs and support for those who lack sufficient means to provide for themselves.

 

[Bomb#20]

Well, that at least is true. It isn't luck. It isn't anything. Worker wages have kept up with inflation.

LOL - if you look at your link, it is clear that median wages did not keep up with inflation during most of the time period between 1979 and 2021. I count about 10 years where the real wage was at least the minimum wage of 1979.

Is this one of those "Ten equals seventeen for sufficiently large values of ten" situations?…..

No, it is basic reasoning. Whether or not wages “keep up with inflation” depends on what one means by “keep up” and the time frame. Clearly wages do not keep up annually - not even close (according to your linked graph). The long run trend is not helpful to workers who also live in the short run - losing ground 75% of the time typically a reduced standard of living during those periods.

Good god, man! Don't just knee-jerk double down! Read the response, think about it for two tenths of a second, and then go back to the link, count the years again, and stop peddling disinformation! The workers did not lose ground 75% of the time, because the number of years where the real wage was at least the wage of 1979* was not ten. You miscounted. It was seventeen.

So it was "even close". 17 is almost half of 42; 21 - 17 = 4 < sqrt(42). I.e., the discrepancy is well within the expected noise level. I.e., dice could perfectly well make a curve shaped like that. You can't expect a process with random effects to come out exactly 50-50. There's no indication that workers systematically lose ground more of the time than they gain ground.

(* You wrote "at least the minimum wage of 1979"; I take it you meant the median wage, from the chart. In 1979 the minimum wage was about $11/hr adjusting for inflation; the figures in the chart are all higher than that.)

As to the "real wages should rise at least at the rate of productivity increase" view, what do you mean by "productivity" and how would you go about measuring it?

Productivity is usually output per unit of input.

Bingo. There's no such thing as just plain "productivity"; there's a separate productivity figure for each different input.

If one looks at hourly wages or labor compensation, output per hour for a firm or real gdp per hour is a ball park figure. Ideally, parsing out the output due solely to the input is the best measure, but that is difficult to do.

Bingo. The relevant figure is the partial derivative of production with respect to the quantity of some particular input; but partial derivatives are difficult to measure. So people engaging in this sort of rhetoric typically use total output per hour of labor as a proxy for productivity. But it should be painfully obvious that adopting this computational procedure amounts to giving labor 100% of the credit for production. I.e., it's just another way to repeat the Labor Theory of Value's metaphysical premise that the source of all value is labor. A partisan can pick any input he pleases, declare it solely responsible for production, and thereby "prove" the providers of that input are exploited.

 

[laughing dog]

Well, that at least is true. It isn't luck. It isn't anything. Worker wages have kept up with inflation.

LOL - if you look at your link, it is clear that median wages did not keep up with inflation during most of the time period between 1979 and 2021. I count about 10 years where the real wage was at least the minimum wage of 1979.

Is this one of those "Ten equals seventeen for sufficiently large values of ten" situations?…..

No, it is basic reasoning. Whether or not wages “keep up with inflation” depends on what one means by “keep up” and the time frame. Clearly wages do not keep up annually - not even close (according to your linked graph). The long run trend is not helpful to workers who also live in the short run - losing ground 75% of the time typically a reduced standard of living during those periods.

Good god, man! Don't just knee-jerk double down! Read the response, think about it for two tenths of a second, and then go back to the link, count the years again, and stop peddling disinformation! The workers did not lose ground 75% of the time, because the number of years where the real wage was at least the wage of 1979* was not ten. You miscounted. It was seventeen.

I must be blind because I only counted 10 years where the real wage was at least it’s value in 1979.

If it is 17, I agree that given the sample size, it it could be random.

 

[Elixir]

Well, that at least is true. It isn't luck. It isn't anything. Worker wages have kept up with inflation.

LOL - if you look at your link, it is clear that median wages did not keep up with inflation during most of the time period between 1979 and 2021. I count about 10 years where the real wage was at least the minimum wage of 1979.

Is this one of those "Ten equals seventeen for sufficiently large values of ten" situations?…..

No, it is basic reasoning. Whether or not wages “keep up with inflation” depends on what one means by “keep up” and the time frame. Clearly wages do not keep up annually - not even close (according to your linked graph). The long run trend is not helpful to workers who also live in the short run - losing ground 75% of the time typically a reduced standard of living during those periods.

Good god, man! Don't just knee-jerk double down! Read the response, think about it for two tenths of a second, and then go back to the link, count the years again, and stop peddling disinformation! The workers did not lose ground 75% of the time, because the number of years where the real wage was at least the wage of 1979* was not ten. You miscounted. It was seventeen.

So it was "even close". 17 is almost half of 42; 21 - 17 = 4 < sqrt(42). I.e., the discrepancy is well within the expected noise level. I.e., dice could perfectly well make a curve shaped like that. You can't expect a process with random effects to come out exactly 50-50. There's no indication that workers systematically lose ground more of the time than they gain ground.

(* You wrote "at least the minimum wage of 1979"; I take it you meant the median wage, from the chart. In 1979 the minimum wage was about $11/hr adjusting for inflation; the figures in the chart are all higher than that.)

As to the "real wages should rise at least at the rate of productivity increase" view, what do you mean by "productivity" and how would you go about measuring it?

Productivity is usually output per unit of input.

Bingo. There's no such thing as just plain "productivity"; there's a separate productivity figure for each different input.

If one looks at hourly wages or labor compensation, output per hour for a firm or real gdp per hour is a ball park figure. Ideally, parsing out the output due solely to the input is the best measure, but that is difficult to do.

Bingo. The relevant figure is the partial derivative of production with respect to the quantity of some particular input; but partial derivatives are difficult to measure. So people engaging in this sort of rhetoric typically use total output per hour of labor as a proxy for productivity. But it should be painfully obvious that adopting this computational procedure amounts to giving labor 100% of the credit for production. I.e., it's just another way to repeat the Labor Theory of Value's metaphysical premise that the source of all value is labor. A partisan can pick any input he pleases, declare it solely responsible for production, and thereby "prove" the providers of that input are exploited.

In my limited real world experience, it turns out that when you (we) hired someone, the cost over the first year is going to be about 1.25 x the sum of all known and calculable costs. It does come down after that but is still… i don’t know the term - nonlinear?

 

[Bomb#20]

There is no such thing as a "right" to ownership, except insofar as a person can convince others that they have such a right. The collusion of a government helps.

Do you feel the same way about the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness too, or are you singling out ownership as different from other rights? Do you think a slave had no right to run away to a free state or Canada except insofar as he could convince others he had such a right?

Only insofar as all rights are social constructions.

Was that a "yes"? Is it your position that all rights are social constructions and therefore a slave had no right to run away to a free state or Canada unless he could convince others he had such a right?

I don't see the rights your mention as strongly analogous to one another. I doubt that you do either. I mean, do you really think your "right" to life is of similar quality or importance as your right to pursue happiness?

I don't see how it's relevant whether they're "strongly analogous to one another". I'm just trying to find out whether they share one particular property in your mind: the property of "no such thing except insofar as a person can convince others that they have such a right". You can lay out as many or as few other distinctions as you please but it won't clarify who it is you think the rights are up to.

(But as to your question, of course they're of similar quality and importance. A person who stops me from being able to pursue happiness, say by lobotomizing me, has wronged me just as surely and severely as a person who murders me.)

If your point is rather that all rights are somehow magical, universal and/or inherent, it seems odd you would directly quote a historical document in attempting to describe what ought to be natural and obvious truths in that case.

My point is not to make any claim about the nature of rights; my point is to cross-examine the witness. I think your reply to Rhea committed equivocation fallacies up the wazoo. When Rhea asked if the people redistribution takes wealth from are its “rightful” owners, she was not enquiring as to whether they are able to convince others that they have such a right. You are equivocating between rights and opinions about rights.

The government has a right to tax you, and if you break the law, the government has the right to fine you, take your property in forfeit, and redistribute it as they see fit.

So if a doctor performs an abortion in Oklahoma you think the government has the right to fine her? What evidence is there for it having any such right?

The government claims that right, and no one who has the power to gainsay them opposes such. Ergo they have it, as much as any entity has a right.

When Rhea asked if the people redistribution takes wealth from are its “rightful” owners, she was not enquiring as to whether they claim that right, or whether the people who oppose that view have power, or whether redistribution is breaking the law, or whom the government will side with. You are equivocating between legal rights and moral rights.

Do workers have a right to redistribution of the wealth they have generated, perhaps if the disparity becomes too obvious? I don't know your situation, but in my country, answering yes to this question in any capacity makes you a "Marxist"...

You appear to be taking for granted that it's the wealth "they have generated", as though the supervisors and shareholders and suppliers and customers and inventors and cops and soldiers and doctors and lawyers and whatnot didn't help generate it too.

No, but you wrote all that. Perhaps you can explain why most of the people you mention aren't paid for their share of the labor at all, and others only a miniscule portion, if people possess some sort of natural right to ownership of property?

What the heck are you talking about? All the people I mention are paid. The workers are paid their wages; the supervisors are paid their salaries; the shareholders are paid their profits; the suppliers are paid what they charge for the supplies; the customers are paid the difference between the price of the product and what the product is actually worth to them; the inventors are paid their royalties or the salaries they were paid for work-for-hire; the cops and soldiers are paid from taxes on the product or profits; the doctors are paid from the company's health plan; and the lawyers are paid because lawyers always find a way to get paid. The portions are miniscule because there are so many portions; but I expect by "miniscule" you mean "smaller than my philosophy claims they ought to be". You'll have to justify your philosophy if you want to make a case for that.

(Incidentally, none of this depends in any way on whether or not people possess some sort of natural right to ownership of property. If people have such a right then that the participants all get paid is a good thing, but the above was descriptive, not prescriptive. Contrariwise, if people don't have such a right it doesn't magically make a competing Marxist description of what's going on any less unscientific.)

(and perceived enemy of the state to most). State welfare is acceptable, at least to Democrats and other "liberals", if it is framed as a sort of noblesse oblige from the state, a kindly gift offered out of empathy and pity. To frame it as a right is to make a claim that very few Americans are willing or inclined to acknowledge,

Where are you getting your statistics? Framing it as a right is very popular with a huge subset of the American people.

I have not cited any statistics, merely observing the general tenor of politics. Out of curiosity, I tried to look around for said statistics before typing out this response, but couldn't find any. Apparently none of the major polling institutions have bothered to ask. Unsurprising, considering the lack of a politically significant Marxist movement in the US.

Now you're equivocating between Marxist and "labeled 'Marxist' by leftists' cartoon-villain caricatures of non-leftists". Framing state welfare as a right rather than as a kindly gift offered out of empathy is pretty much conventional wisdom among progressives. If major polling institutions aren't bothering to count Marxists, that doesn't mean they aren't counting progressives.

out of terror that it will hurt their self-interest if applied consistently rather than haphazardly.

Oh for the love of god! The people who reject your theory of rights reject it because we think it's asinine, not because of whatever goofy psychology it pleases you to make up and impute to us.

I have not advanced a "theory of rights", nor have I accused you of having a psychology. If you prefer to be seen as mindless, you are free to portray yourself in such a fashion.

Of course you accused us of having a psychology. I am one of those liberals you described as regarding state welfare as acceptable "as a sort of noblesse oblige from the state, a kindly gift offered out of empathy and pity". You claimed the reason we don't frame it as a right is "out of terror that it will hurt their self-interest if applied consistently rather than haphazardly." That's a psychology.

And of course you've advanced a "theory of rights" -- two of them in fact. You proposed people can get a right by convincing others that they have such a right. And you proposed people can get a right by taking governmental power, claiming that right, and arranging that those who oppose it don't have the power to gainsay them. "Ergo they have it, as much as any entity has a right." Those theories are asinine.

 

[Politesse]

Was that a "yes"? Is it your position that all rights are social constructions and therefore a slave had no right to run away to a free state or Canada unless he could convince others he had such a right

Transparently so. They had to fight very hard, against tremendously powerful institutions, to secure that right. It was by no means given as a gift, but seized as a right through patience, determination, and sometimes violence. And thank god that it was. Isaac Hopper, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Lija Anderson, William Still, and all the others who made this happen are goddamned heroes.