Because sometimes there are enlightened owners. But the vast majority are in an adversarial position with their employees.
Non union? Even restaurants must pay the going rate. If workers are scarce ,wages go up. Workers are not scarce. Wages are dropping .They will continue to drop until we reach equilibrium with the rest of the world. Perot told you . Did you listen.
I explained that before. Non union companies had to match union plans for 2 reasons. One is that they were preventing their companies from organizing. The other of course is workers were needed and they had to compete for employees. That is no longer true. Now there is a surplus of workers ,so wages are dropping and benefits are getting slashed. A few years ago nobody paid copays and kicked in fir health care. Now most people do. Vacation time has been slashed. The trend is very clear.
Our median wage is a relic of union and nearly full employment times. Our wages are dropping. I am sure you know that. Do you have some reason to think they will not continue to drop? Especially since there are no forces pushing wages and benefits up. The next generation will pay for our blind reckless acceptance of the corporate narrative. The generation after that will be even worse. The next generation will not live as well as we did. The trend is clear and unmistakable. But the longer time future is scary.
Oh my. Oh dear.
I don’t mean to hijack the OP, but I must…for just a post or two…please, to explain some basic mathematics. Please forgive me.
Mr Gonzomax, the reason your bottom 20 percent only get a tax break of 744 bucks total is…
Because.
They.
Pay.
Practically.
Zero
Taxes.
To Begin With.
Your link only shows differences, or changes, between a baselined prior tax burden and the supposed effects of the Bush tax cuts.
For people who pay almost zero federal taxes already, as is the case with 40+% of the lower income people in the US, a ‘tax break’ means nothing. Because they aren’t paying any taxes to begin with, anyway!
If a wealthy person who pays a lot in taxes gets a tax break, of course he will retain more of his money. Of course the absolute $$ amount of his tax burden will be reduced more than a poor persons. It is mathematically impossible for it to be otherwise. If -X% is the reduction in tax rate, -X% of a big number is still a pretty big number. -X% of zero is zero.
That is what your link shows. Big differences in absolute $$ for the highest earners, who pay the most taxes. Small differences for the poor people, who were paying almost nothing to begin with.
Good gracious. I’m embarrassed for you.
Here are some more links of potential interest, that show how little the bottom taxpayers pay, and how many owe nothing at all.
And my links don’t claim (like yours does) that the government is ‘giving’ money back to the taxpayers. Your link got that point a little backwards. The government only takes. And redistributes. It does not ‘give’.
What causes wages to go up is competition. If there is better pay elsewhere, people will leave. It creates ambition, creates job movement so others can get into a new job.
gonzomax, you are probably part of a union.
The problem is not unions themselves. Unions are good if they protect workers that are abused or mistreated. But public sector unions are not abused. or mistreated. They abuse our money. They overpay staff that shouldn’t be paid so much. If unions really set the bar, why are cashiers still paid $10/hr where union cashiers are paid $30/hr?
The problem is that the public sector is not managing the money properly.
Why are they paying a cashier or a ticket booth collector 30-50% more than a private sector job?
How does overpaying unskilled people help?
All I see is this
- Less money for real stuff like services, upgrades and equipment
- Government goes into deficit
- More taxes
- Unskilled workers that feel they deserve that money and slack on the job
- Unions protect lazy workers because they pay union dues so more ppl means more money for union bosses
And regarding the government.
I’d love to think there are government elected officials that care about the poor but really they don’t or can’t.
The banks and wealthy run the USA and Canada.
Unless you overthrow everyone in politics, it will be the same thing, status quo.
Folks who use this talking point so often screw it up. Like you just did.
It is factually wrong to state that the poor to lower middle class pay no taxes. The truth is that the bottom 40% or so pay very little in INCOME taxes, but they continue to pay PAYROLL taxes.
Here is a chart I’m almost tired of citing. It shows how much the average income earner pays in different Federal taxes. As I said, the lower two quintiles generally get some money back in Federal taxes because of EITC. But they pay payroll taxes, and in fact their overall Federal tax burden averages between 4 to 10 percent.
You are free to argue that the poor and lower middle class should pay more taxes. You are free to argue that it is only fair and just that they pay payroll taxes. But you cannot distort the facts and say that they pay nothing in Federal taxes, because they do. It’s not as much as the wealthy or upper middle class, but get your facts straight.
There was a lot more to the chart than the bottom 20. The cuts were heavily weighted to go to the rich. No matter how you slice it, the rich were treated well by the Bush tax cuts.
You are simplifying to the point of stupidity.
You of course are buying the narrative that the bottom 20 percent pay no taxes at all. They actually pay a lot of taxes. They pay SS taxes for their entire wages. The rich don’t pay after they reach a certain level. Sales taxes ,gasoline taxes ,state and local taxes are a large percentage of their income. These taxes are a whisper to the rich. They don’t have to think about them at all .
Do you really feel the rich are being unfairly treated in America? I am sure you would feel better if you gave away all your money. Then you would not feel the oppression .
Tax Rates For America's Top 400 Earners Fell As Income Soared In 2007, According To IRS | HuffPost Impact Mr. Idaho ,for your edification. The rich have many ways to hide their income. Billions went to Swiss Banks and the Caimans. They pay a max of 15 percent on many of their accounts.
Buffet said it is a war between the rich and the poor. And we (the rich) are winning. He pointed out that his secretary paid a far larger percentage of her money in taxes than he did. He thought it was unfair. You should send him a note to take away his guilt.
I think the poor pay little tax.
The real problem is that the middle class is being squeezed.
The middle class is becoming the poor (lower class)
The rich can afford to lower their taxes with ‘donations’, offshore accounts, etc.
The middle class can’t. They have to use all of their money to pay for things.
The higher taxes is something they have to pay and cannot offset.
Missed this earlier, and never like to leave a question unanswered.
My girlfriend is a government MBA. She could make 50% more tomorrow in the private sector; however that would likely involve working 60 hour weeks, travelling to consult at companies in Peoria and Sheboygan, having far more accountability and pressure and much less paid time off. (And of course, if she ever does go for the money, having government experience and contacts will help her land a more lucrative private-sector job.) As it is, she still makes a healthy salary, gets comp time if she works over 40 hours in a given week, and is more or less unfirable. (Although the downside is that she must work with people who are also unfirable, and know it) When we get together with her B-school friends for dinner and drinks or whatever, and they almost always express envy.
But again, this thread is not about white-collar management, but about unionized workers.
I have never been in a union.
How do you determine they are overpaying unskilled workers? They are setting a bottom that lifts all wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html?_r=1 There are good bosses. They reason they get a story written up is because they are so rare.
For every guy like this, there are thousands like the owners of mines who don’t care about their employees.
My grandfather came to America in the 1900s. He was a miner. The mine owners were ruthless , like they are now. He worked for a mine that had unions trying to organize . The mine owners hired thugs to beat and kill the organizers. The day my dad was born ,my grandfather was with her . At the same time there was a church holding a union meeting. There were men, women and children there. The thugs barred up the church and burned it down, killing everybody in it. They fled to Detroit.
He worked in an auto factory. Soon they started to organize. He and some of my uncles were at the “battle of the overpass”. Ford had hired criminal thugs to stop the unions. They were beaten and some killed. They were ruthless and brutal. You can always hire someone to do dirty work, so you can sit back with clean hands and watch the carnage.
The benefits you people enjoy are a result of blood sweat and lives sacrificed to get them. Work places are safer. Workers have some rights and benefits.
If you think that wages being paid to union workers are a threat to the economy you are nuts. You are digging in the wrong spot. It is the bankers and owners who are looting the economy. They are doing it by taking over the legislative and judicial branches of every state and the nation. They have been very successful. They took the economy down and rewarded themselves billions of tax dollars. You should direct your anger at bosses who take mega-millions of dollars while shipping your jobs abroad. A boss that sends 400 jobs to China or Korea is rewarded with huge bonuses and stock option. He is lauded as a great leader. He is actually harming America and should be thought of as semi-traitorous. Hollowing out American jobs will not be a benefit to us. It will make them very rich.
Don’t bitch about a working guy getting a living wage. It may be your lot someday. You will not be the guy getting hundreds of millions. That door has a private entrance .
That was back in 1900s when there were no laws to protect workers.
Sure unions helped back then but now it’s not needed for the public sector.
Maybe unions should go around helping the low wage earners like daycare workers, or other skilled workers.
Why keep propping up a bloated system with overpaid unskilled workers.
If unions are the basis of salaries, why are there cashiers still being paid $10/hr or less?
You fail to see that I’m paying taxes to support overpaid union workers when the money should be managed better.
I don’t like that bankers and them get paid that much either. The banks should have all failed and let the weak crumble. A better banking system probably would have emerged.
But that’s something else.
I don’t hearing public sector union workers complain about their inflated wages and then go on strike to get more and more. Then we have budget deficits, service cuts and long wait times for government things to get completed.
Why are the governments always in deficit? I bet majority of the deficit can be eliminated by bringing the union worker wages in line with private sector.
That is not where the bulk of your money goes. It is just something that you see. But the wealth is going to the top. You don’t see them. The working class is having a lot of pressure on them to work cheaper. You are doing it here. If you think the bulk of your tax money is supporting the unwashed ,who should work for minimum wage, you are deluding yourself.
When I was working at the automotive companies in Detroit, when the unions got a raise we did. When they got better vacations or health care we did. If they got gutted, like so many of you think is right, all wages and benefits would drop. Well not the executives, they would get a chunk of that. They would get more.
A good example of union workers being overpaid and ruining things is GM.
The workers were on average paid $29 (big 3) over the foreign workers.
This eventually led to the bailout of the big 3.
One could argue that the Big 3 produced bad cars… One could argue that the union workers wage is what caused the company into having little money to innovate.
Anyway, the union worker wages wasn’t sustainable. So the government had to throw YOUR money their way. Would you want the union workers to keep receiving the same pay but having the government fund GM the extra cash to sustain it? Or do you want the union workers to be in line with the foreign workers (who are still paid well)? That way the government doesn’t have to bail them out.
BUT in the government situation, the money is endless.
They can go into deficit for long periods of time and just tax people to get money.
Or cut services.
“One could argue?”
How about GM was making money hand over fist when gas was cheap and GM execs were all too happy to have a business based around profitable sales of large SUVs. Then, when gas prices went up, and SUV sales tanked, the business cried, “Mercy! Mercy! 'Twas not our intention to make so much money off of gas guzzling vehicles! But for our union workers who were making these hot-selling vehicles, people would still be buying Escalades!! Psst… hey… I just got a great idea. Even though Toyota is making a killing with the Prius, let’s put a hybrid engine in our biggest trucks, so they get 14 MPG instead of 10 for only $5,000 more! Genius!!”
Oh, definitely. Unions are to blame for the awesome idea putting hybrid engines in huge trucks. If union wages weren’t so high, GM could afford to spend more in advertising this winning line of products so Americans would realize what great cars they are.
You TOTALLY nailed the union there.
The Big 3 suffer from arrogance and GM was the worst. Once a GM president declared" so goes GM .so goes the country". Another w=hen asked about people wanting them to make smaller more fuel efficient cars responded" They will buy what we tell them to".
When VW started to make inroads with the Bug ,the big 3 let them have the market. They eventually cobbled together some crappy cars to badly compete. Just a decade ago, the Big 3 was making billions selling SUVs. The profit per car was enormous. They made record profits. They rode it as long as they could. It was too long. They had nothing to compete with the new markets for better mileage, electrical or battery cars. Now GM is coming out ,way too late with the Volt. They could have made it a long time ago.
But that is the flaw with capitalism. Every corporation is judged by what they do each year. If they came to the Board of Directors and declared we have smaller profits this year because we invested in Rand D ,they would lose their jobs or get a cut in bonuses. We do not think 5 years ahead or even a couple. The rewards for management are yearly. The greed of the bosses means they will not take a cut to position the company for the future. Why take 6 million when you can squeeze 15 out by gutting R&D. Jettison workers and the bottom line looks good. Who is in position to think about the long range future of the company? Nobody. How do we compete with countries that encourage corporatiions to invest in the future, like China and Japan.
Note when the Big 3 was raking in the gold with SUVs ,they had unions. When the company did not move to make products of the future, what was the union input. I assure you thousands of employees would have told you they had to make modern products. But who listens to them? Most of the people on this board could see they were headed for a fall. It does not require high power execs. But the system is flawed. It is made to enrich the top.
For the 3rd or 4th time-federal unions in the United States are not allowed to strike per the Civil Service Reform Act. They cannot set salaries. Management retains the sole authority to allocate work. They do not have the right to influence, write or help develop position descriptions. Their rights are severely circumscribed. The larger parent unions actually advise federal stewards to get as much settled out as possible because it’s difficult to win at the FLRA and MSPB level. Most contracts have either split cost/loser pays provisions, which makes going to arbitration fairly difficult for unions, especially those that do not have dues-paying professionals willing to volunteer their time.
I’m currently on a negotiating team helping to re-write the contract for a major federal union for the Western states (I’m union but because I’m the only attorney at the table, I end up doing most of the legal research and the Management team accepts it because I’m rather impartial and both sides know that). Obviously a lot of stuff is confidential and I can’t talk about what they’re squabbling over, but if 10 cost-cutting measures are proposed, 7 of them originate with the Union but management digs in their heels because it would interfere with overpriced government contracts!
Honestly, I’m actually something of a moderate and see where the unions have gone wrong from the inside. I’ve always told my union supervisors that I think it would be a supremely bad idea for the CSRA provisions on strikes to be reversed and that I don’t think that it’s a good idea for them to get any work allocation power back. That said, I have an equal amount of disdain for management (for wildly different reasons)-but again, a lot of that crap is confidential and it’s not worth losing my licenses to win points on Great Debates. canadiankorean, I have no idea what the situation is in Canada, but in the US, the unions are seriously circumscribed in what they can do by statutes that limit their power.