Why isn't the "Economic Recovery" increasing workers' pay?

[untermensche]

Yes it's a part. What you argue about is how much of the value is created by the mental part. You believe it's all the other labor that makes the whole, not the organizational part.

You clearly didn't read what you quoted.

Non-human materials, mental labor and physical labor are all required.

None can be said to not be essential.

And many of the people doing physical labor are also doing mental labor.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yes it's a part. What you argue about is how much of the value is created by the mental part. You believe it's all the other labor that makes the whole, not the organizational part.

You clearly didn't read what you quoted.

Non-human materials, mental labor and physical labor are all required.

None can be said to not be essential.

And many of the people doing physical labor are also doing mental labor.

Then that's fine. Hence why labor gets paid for their work.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes, costs per employee did just go up

Pure pointless arithmetic. That is a meaningless average.

and with a replacement they would have to look at all the costs for that new employee including office space.

Not if they want to improve their bottom line. At that point, replacing that employee does not change their fixed costs one iota. In fact, all it does it reduce the average fixed costs per employee without changing their outlays for fixed costs at all. Even a halfway intelligent decision-maker would understand that.

 

[Axulus]

And without office space where are the workers going to work? On the street? Maybe you can get lucky with a business that doesn't need office space. This is crazy, you definitely need to understand your costs for the space you are using per employee. If you didn't, there would be no difference in a office space costing $100K or $50K a month.

There would be 50K per month difference. Duh. Your responses are evading the issue. If an office of 20 loses an employee, then according to you, the cost per employee just rose. Arithmetically that is true, but it is a meaningless number for decision-making.

Not if you fail to renew a lease on office space those 20 employees were using. Companies expand and downsize office space all the time when their employee count rises and falls.

 

[laughing dog]

And without office space where are the workers going to work? On the street? Maybe you can get lucky with a business that doesn't need office space. This is crazy, you definitely need to understand your costs for the space you are using per employee. If you didn't, there would be no difference in a office space costing $100K or $50K a month.

There would be 50K per month difference. Duh. Your responses are evading the issue. If an office of 20 loses an employee, then according to you, the cost per employee just rose. Arithmetically that is true, but it is a meaningless number for decision-making.

Not if you fail to renew a lease on office space those 20 employees were using. Companies expand and downsize office space all the time when their employee count rises and falls.

They certainly don't do it immediately. Nor do they do it with small changes. Nor does an office serve solely to help employees work.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yes, costs per employee did just go up

Pure pointless arithmetic. That is a meaningless average.

and with a replacement they would have to look at all the costs for that new employee including office space.

Not if they want to improve their bottom line. At that point, replacing that employee does not change their fixed costs one iota. In fact, all it does it reduce the average fixed costs per employee without changing their outlays for fixed costs at all. Even a halfway intelligent decision-maker would understand that.

No, by your method if you had a $100K rent a month, your first lawyer in the building would have to make $100K above his payroll to make a profit while all the others would only have to make a $1. Allocating your fixed costs for what actually happens is very important which means dividing out the $100K of rent between the employees who take up space there.

 

[laughing dog]

Pure pointless arithmetic. That is a meaningless average.

Not if they want to improve their bottom line. At that point, replacing that employee does not change their fixed costs one iota. In fact, all it does it reduce the average fixed costs per employee without changing their outlays for fixed costs at all. Even a halfway intelligent decision-maker would understand that.

No, by your method if you had a $100K rent a month, your first lawyer in the building would have to make $100K above his payroll to make a profit while all the others would only have to make a $1.

If you felt the need to set up an idiotic method for evaluating employees, I agree.

Allocating your fixed costs for what actually happens is very important

Which means one does not use meaningless averages.

 

[coloradoatheist]

If you felt the need to set up an idiotic method for evaluating employees, I agree.

Allocating your fixed costs for what actually happens is very important

Which means one does not use meaningless averages.

Correct. So deciding the Pinball machine gets all the expenses with the floor space is wrong, allocating the cost of the floor space for the people who use it is correct.

 

[laughing dog]

If you felt the need to set up an idiotic method for evaluating employees, I agree.

Allocating your fixed costs for what actually happens is very important

Which means one does not use meaningless averages.

Correct. So deciding the Pinball machine gets all the expenses with the floor space is wrong, allocating the cost of the floor space for the people who use it is correct.

No. Both are correct if one is interested in pointless averages.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

huh ld? Office space is a cost to an employee, along with IT costs, training, and other costs depending on what position it is. Using sales change minus payroll change can only give you a rough estimate which could be used to compare time frames or across industries to compare overhead between them. But you wouldn't use it to see if an employee has a positive marginality.

And that's still missing the biggest one--it's not sales, but (sales - cost of goods) that it should be being compared to!

And nitpick: "a cost to an employee" should be "a cost of an employee".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What, do you think they will give you a pony after the economic distribution of America starts to look like Mexico?

In the 1960s, someone working a full time minimum wage could live off of that wage without government assistance.

Now the economics have changed so that no someone working minimum wage probably needs food stamps to get by, and there are a growing number of people with full time jobs living on the streets.

1) Check the numbers. Poverty level one adult: $12,060. US Minimum wage: $7.25/hr, full time = $15,080/yr. (Note that at this level they will still be eligible for Medicaid in enlightened states--note that medical care is far more expensive than it was in the 60s.)

2) You are looking at whites in the US. We are no longer able to export as much shit to other groups.

- - - Updated - - -

Office space is not a cost of an employee, because if the employee is not employed, the cost remains. Same for IT.

But if they had never hired the employee they wouldn't have incurred the costs.

Losing an employee leaves an inefficiency that you are pretending means it isn't a cost of the employee.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If unions are the only way to increase wages why are almost all the best paying jobs non-union?

They aren't Loren.
The highest paid jobs in the US are always union jobs. Like the medical doctors AMA union set up for the doctors or the board of directors setup for the CEO's or the pilots union setup for the pilots.

The AMA certainly isn't a union. I don't even see how you are calling the board of directors a union.

I do agree that pilots are a union at most companies--which is why the pay for starting pilots is absolute shit given the cost of their training. Pilot unions are good for senior pilots, very bad for junior pilots.

Whenever there is barrier of entry due to a requirement of a lobby or commitee.....thats a union. Whether you like it or not.

No. My wife had a tough test to get a license and must remain in good standing with the licensing board--but said board has absolutely no interest in her financial arrangements other than if they were contrary to the law. They provide absolutely no assistance in obtaining better working conditions or higher pay.

Actually, I think there is a good argument to be made the UAW is much more honorable than a typical board of directors. Because the UAW is at least honest about their intent and bargaining in good faith. As opposed to running a scam like many of the other professional organizations.

I disagree about the good faith bit. They have finally recognized that the wage scales they want are not consistent with still having an employer--but the response has been a two-tiered system where the old guys still pig out and the new guys get shit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Within a company there are three things that are needed to produce anything.

You need non-living materials, this includes capital.

You need physical labor.

And you need mental labor in all it's forms. And mental labor is not something done solely by a few giving orders from the top. Every worker is using their mental capacities to perform their jobs.

Except some are doing far more mental labor than others. It's just the ones at the bottom can't see this. I've actually overheard shop workers who feel I'm way overpaid for the skill of being able to type fast. That's utterly missing the fact that I'm not paid for typing, typing is simply how I deliver the actual work. The context was troubleshooting a problem that was only observed on the live production system--and that involved making code changes. Any slipup and the downtime would cost $55/minute.

In other words there are things that have to be done by humans.

All three are essential.

None can be said to be the most essential or more essential than any other.

Without any one the triad collapses.

But you don't want to pay for that capital and you don't understand the value of skills that you don't have.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not if you fail to renew a lease on office space those 20 employees were using. Companies expand and downsize office space all the time when their employee count rises and falls.

They certainly don't do it immediately. Nor do they do it with small changes. Nor does an office serve solely to help employees work.

Your argument basically amounts to the costs not perfectly tracking with changes in the number of workers.

I suppose you don't consider being shot to be hazardous because there's nothing like a perfect tracking between being shot and being killed. (Most deaths are not from being shot, most people who are shot don't die from it.)

 

[untermensche]

Within a company there are three things that are needed to produce anything.

You need non-living materials, this includes capital.

You need physical labor.

And you need mental labor in all it's forms. And mental labor is not something done solely by a few giving orders from the top. Every worker is using their mental capacities to perform their jobs.

Except some are doing far more mental labor than others.

And some are doing far more physical labor than others.

So fucking what?

In dictatorial systems of course the dictators will always say they deserve the most for what they do.

 

[RVonse]

The AMA certainly isn't a union.

"American Medical Association: the strongest trade union in the USA"

http://www.aei.org/publication/american-medical-association-the-strongest-trade-union-in-the-u-s-a/


And that was only what I just pulled easily off google. I can still remember in economics class I took in college (during the 1980's) my professor used the AMA as the reference text book example of a trade union. Because the AMA purposely limits the supply of labor in order to raise doctor wages.

 

[RVonse]

No. My wife had a tough test to get a license and must remain in good standing with the licensing board--but said board has absolutely no interest in her financial arrangements other than if they were contrary to the law. They provide absolutely no assistance in obtaining better working conditions or higher pay.

The fact they make you get a license is a barrier to entry in and of itself. Fewer people able to show a license drives up wages (supply vs demand).

 

[RVonse]

-but the response has been a two-tiered system where the old guys still pig out and the new guys get shit.

I agree with this. But the UAW did have its back against the wall at the time. And they are attempting to equalize wages over time, because even they know that you can not have new guys working right besides old guys making over twice the money. They are very aware it is not sustainable and working to equalize the situation.

 

[bilby]

The AMA certainly isn't a union. I don't even see how you are calling the board of directors a union.

I do agree that pilots are a union at most companies--which is why the pay for starting pilots is absolute shit given the cost of their training. Pilot unions are good for senior pilots, very bad for junior pilots.

While a junior doctor's life is all bunny rabbits and flowers and leprechauns...

 

[Trausti]

Huh, on page 6 of a thread about slow wage growth and not one mention of legal/illegal immigration or Zuckerberg visas.