People Power

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Think of the Great Fire of Rome in 64

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This comparison to the Roman Empire is very relevant for the modern day world. An internationalized economy, which is only doing well when it's expanding, countless bureaucracy, filthy rich and simply filthy elites, millions of people living on welfare, outlandish lifestyles, decline of moral values and nobody's happy with each other. Doesn't it look like the world we live in now?

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

The free market should decide salaries. Nothing or no one else.

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The free market does to a great degree. It explains why average real wages have been falling for 30 years.

People should accept that someone in other countries can do the jobs that they used to do for a tenth of the cost. It's why manufacturing jobs are being exported from the United States and the UK etc to Asian countries, and why as we head further into the 21st Century why Africa will pick up more manufacturing jobs.

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Originally Posted by 555-04Q2

That is exactly the sort of attitude that leaves people stuck in the same situation...if you don't plug away at it, you deserve no rewards.

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True, but despite plugging away at it (as evidenced by the increase in productivity) for the last 30yrs people have seen their "rewards" fall a long way behind those they're making money for.

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Originally Posted by 555-04Q2

These world wide protests we are seeing are proof that the majority of the worlds population are idiots and the vast majority of these idiots are also lazy and unwilling to make an improvement in their own lives, so they protest about it being someone else's fault.

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Or are they protesting exactly because they want to make an improvement to their, and others, lives? You say "if you don't plug away at it, you deserve no rewards" so should people do nothing when they see an injustice affecting them?

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

True, but despite plugging away at it (as evidenced by the increase in productivity) for the last 30yrs people have seen their "rewards" fall a long way behind those they're making money for.

Or are they protesting exactly because they want to make an improvement to their, and others, lives? You say "if you don't plug away at it, you deserve no rewards" so should people do nothing when they see an injustice affecting them?

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The protests we are seeing are from the "have nots" complaining about how much the "haves" have. I don't understand why? If you want what they have, go out and get it for yourself, don't protest and complain. There have to be poor people and rich people in our society. It's sad but true. You either make yourself one of the rich, or you remain poor.

I came from a very poor family where some days I went without lunch and dinner. We had very few niceties growing up. I worked hard and got to where I am today because I said "well this situation sucks". Protesting doesn't get you anything, actually doing something about your own situation does.

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Originally Posted by 555-04Q2

Now that is sad to hear, especially as you are so young. What the hell are you going to achieve in life with that attitude Jon :(

When you are doing the funky monkey with your lady, do you do just enough to get the job done, or do you go at it with everything you got? Think about it :)

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They aren't comparable. A lady is much more likely to sack you off than an employer! :p

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Then the Free market would dictate that the retailer you are working for in all probability is loosing out on sales and market share because of this policy.

It reminds me of the Saturn Car company. Launched with great fanfare that there would be no Buyer/Seller price haggling just one sticker price and that it's salesmen would just work for a Salary and not commission. They built some of the finest cars in the entire GM line. We all know where Saturn is now.

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Do all firms in a free-market achieve profit-maximisation, sales maximisation, market share maximisation? I think not. Diseconomy of scale are probably causing the firm I work for to miss out on sales, but not to a degree high enough to force them out of the market.

Price haggling seems to be a dying art. When was the last time someone here bought something other than a car or house after negotiating the price down? I can only think of when I've bought musical instruments and perhaps a shirt that had a button missing.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

It reminds me of the Saturn Car company. Launched with great fanfare that there would be no Buyer/Seller price haggling just one sticker price and that it's salesmen would just work for a Salary and not commission. They built some of the finest cars in the entire GM line. We all know where Saturn is now.

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What was the logic by GM in having 8 brands at once? Surely that's just bonkers in the first place. I wonder how many sales Saturn would have vampired from other GM brands. For most countries in the world there's usually only ONE GM brand per market, occasionally two when they want to foist Korean cars on the public.

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

They aren't comparable. A lady is much more likely to sack you off than an employer! :p

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:laugh:

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

What I suppose I meant was that lots of jobs which aren't that ****ty are miserable affairs when they need not be. Why are they? Because of the way employers are so often.

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So you are saying that if my boss is the best boss in the world, I won't mind pumping other people's sh!t? Seriously. Come on, there are clearly jobs out there no one wants to do (Do you guys get the show "Dirty Jobs" in Europe?), pay is pretty much the only motivation in those cases.

For all of you that are proposing that an income gap is some sort of tragedy, I have one simple question ... How do you propose we "fix" this problem?