Expert prognosis for the planet

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

Here we go off topic. Come along for the ride.
I have read that past a certain level of wealth money no longer becomes a utility to be used. It becomes a measure to compare one's position to another.
There isn't much difference in utility between $100 million and $200 million but the the person with $200 million can I say am positioned higher than my neighbour who only has $100 million. That is, it becomes a purely measure of status. I have read this why CEOs demand so much money; not for what the money could do for them but as a means to be compared to their peers.

Yachts are expensive man.

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by Spuds

Yachts are expensive man.

Only if you're poor earning $20 million p.a.

Here's a further off topic rant. I hate the term "affordable". Everything's affordable if you can afford it.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

Here we go off topic. Come along for the ride.
I have read that past a certain level of wealth money no longer becomes a utility to be used. It becomes a measure to compare one's position to another.
There isn't much difference in utility between $100 million and $200 million but the the person with $200 million can I say am positioned higher than my neighbour who only has $100 million. That is, it becomes a purely measure of status. I have read this why CEOs demand so much money; not for what the money could do for them but as a means to be compared to their peers.

Exactly, it becomes a game or a status symbol to attain as much as possible. I really, truly believe that some of these wealthy individuals could be hoarders, just of money, like in the way that they attain and retain possessions that lack real value or meaning for the individual no different than someone packing their house with garbage and newspapers.

To be fair, there is a difference between wealth and salary, and while some of these people are obviously living lavish lifestyles, they only cash out a small fraction of their wealth on a yearly basis to live off of like I wouldn't be surprised if Bezos actually lives below $1-10 million a year. If you don't count his investments or his philanthropy or his projects then you might find his annual budget for living and traveling expenses might be proportionally very low. My project might be using my income to add a supercharger to the car. His project for the year might be cashing out some stocks, so he can build a rocket, but my point is that he doesn't really use or see much of his gains to his wealth because much of it is locked in asset and stock evaluation.

What gets me is the hypocrisy of rich people saying they don't want to pay too much taxes and some billionaires literally crying on TV about it, but then you read something like this:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...late-for-sale/

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

Only if you're poor earning $20 million p.a.

Here's a further off topic rant. I hate the term "affordable". Everything's affordable if you can afford it.

i've started telling customers something similar. like when they want to remove a load-bearing wall.

"anything can be done, it just matters how willing you are to pay for it"


because if i just tell them "no", then they go find someone else to knock it down that doesn't realize it's a load bearing wall...

[Irace86.2.0]

Unfortunately this is the reality:

Many companies are so large with so many subsidiaries or locations that they can operate with slim margins or at a loss at many locations, which keeps them strong and drives out competition, but it also means they may be operating within a small percentage of failure. Example: if a corporation sells a million units at $10 then they have $10 million in revenue. If their operational costs are $9.50 per item then they only made $0.50 per unit or $500,000 in profit, which may not be enough to have money to invest to stay competitive or provide the owners with enough money to make the effort worthwhile, so they need to actually raise the price to $12, so they have $2.5 million in profit. A large, multi-national competitor sells 100 million units of the same product at $9.10, severally undercutting the other guy. Their operational costs are only $9.00 per unit because of efficiencies of scale, which the smaller competitor can't match. Their revenue is $910 million, and their operational costs are just $900 million, such that their profit is $10 million. This means the owner has more money in his pockets and more money to continue investing in the corporation. It also means if the operational costs unexpectedly go up because a commodity like rubber or oil goes up, and the price isn't adjusted proportionally, the big corporation could be in the red, so they decide to hire some top CEOs to make sure they are always in the green, but that costs them a million in profit. No biggie. The owner is still making a lot of money, especially compared to his rival, who is having a hard time selling even the million units priced so much higher than the large corporation. Eventually, his business sells to the large corporation or goes under. And the cycle continues.

As the profits roll in, the corporation has extra profit, so what does it do? Well, it can reinvest and develop. It can grow and expand. It can pay bonuses to those CEOs to retain their "expertise", but they don't "trickle the money down" to the average worker because those workers are expendable and easily replaceable.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/it...ays-2019-09-30

According to this article, it would take a thousand years for the average employee to match the wages of the average CEO for one year in the top 50 worst wage gap corporations. Sometimes this is exasperated by the fact that these CEOs are in the US, but the workers are in Mexico or China. Sometimes it is just a sad reality of the structure. If you have 10,000 workers then you can give the CEO a bonus of $10 million to retain that high demand CEO, or you can give the expendable workers $1,000 each. And, that is the culture we live in. With Walmart having 2.2 million employees, they either pay the ten CEOs $10 million a piece at $100 million, or they pay the 2.2 million employees $45 a piece. If they reduced these CEOs salaries to say $500,000 then that wouldn't do much for the average employee. Even if that means $100 million goes back into worker's salaries then we are talking $45 payout or about $0.02 per hour raise. Obviously, it is easier for the business to pay out a bonus to the CEOs when they have a green year because they will see a real increase in salary, where the employees might be able to go out for a steak dinner once. They can't even raise the salaries by $0.02 per hour because the next year they may not be in the green if they do.

As we can see, the problem is that when business get large they operate at such tight margins that they are capable of still making millions or billions, but are still operating on the edge, so they squeeze their employees and inflate their CEOs' salaries. Add in the need to keep growing for investors, and the basic employee just gets abused.

I don't really have a solution for this. I think more business, regardless of how little it may be, should be offering their employees a profit sharing option, so that the business doesn't have to commit to larger salaries, but if there is a profit then all employees will see a bonus. Rich people won't whine about having to pay taxes, if they don't ever get such a huge salary or bonus to begin with. If we create a situation where a corporation can not have such a huge gap between their top earners and their average salary then they might distribute shares of the profits more equitably amongst their employees. If they violate the cap then maybe they pay a tax penalty or something. I don't know. I feel like there are other solutions besides tax solutions like antitrust laws. Clearly, the average family isn't benefiting from buying cheap crap from Walmart like economists want us to believe.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Unfortunately this is the reality:

Many companies are so large with so many subsidiaries or locations that they can operate with slim margins or at a loss at many locations, which keeps them strong and drives out competition, but it also means they may be operating within a small percentage of failure. Example: if a corporation sells a million units at $10 then they have $10 million in revenue. If their operational costs are $9.50 per item then they only made $0.50 per unit or $500,000 in profit, which may not be enough to have money to invest to stay competitive or provide the owners with enough money to make the effort worthwhile, so they need to actually raise the price to $12, so they have $2.5 million in profit. A large, multi-national competitor sells 100 million units of the same product at $9.10, severally undercutting the other guy. Their operational costs are only $9.00 per unit because of efficiencies of scale, which the smaller competitor can't match. Their revenue is $910 million, and their operational costs are just $900 million, such that their profit is $10 million. This means the owner has more money in his pockets and more money to continue investing in the corporation. It also means if the operational costs unexpectedly go up because a commodity like rubber or oil goes up, and the price isn't adjusted proportionally, the big corporation could be in the red, so they decide to hire some top CEOs to make sure they are always in the green, but that costs them a million in profit. No biggie. The owner is still making a lot of money, especially compared to his rival, who is having a hard time selling even the million units priced so much higher than the large corporation. Eventually, his business sells to the large corporation or goes under. And the cycle continues.

As the profits roll in, the corporation has extra profit, so what does it do? Well, it can reinvest and develop. It can grow and expand. It can pay bonuses to those CEOs to retain their "expertise", but they don't "trickle the money down" to the average worker because those workers are expendable and easily replaceable.

to the first bolded part. at the beginning of the pandemic, when publicly traded companies were whining and moaning for a bailout because they were operating on razor thin margins that suddenly vanished due to stop work orders, or changes in the supply chain, they had no rainy day fund to tide them over. there were some interesting article comments that delved deeper into it, and i came to better understand that publicly traded companies first responsibility(whether right or not, it doesn't matter) is to their shareholders to maximize the shareholders return. it is entirely unacceptable to shareholders to see a budget line item for "reserve". they expect that money to become part of their return, or dividends, and will oust any leadership that doesn't make that happen.

so the end of it is pure american greed that needs to be changed. and i think we can all agree that's never going to change.

to the second bolded comment, every once in a while, i'll be talking to a hiring manager or similar about how busy their company is, and there's time's where the results are "we're so busy, i wish we could find people to fill the position!" so i'll suggest that maybe they're not paying enough for the position if they're not getting the applicants they want, and they'll get all shocked and try to explain to me in useless advanced methodology that $x.xx is the market average for that specific job, and they can't pay more...

companies have worked themselves into a hole that they all want to complain about 'not being able to hire anyone', but they also refuse to pay any more for those positions that would attract either new or existing talent to those positions. they're left circling the literal drain of getting the same garbage applicants for the same position because that's what the talent pool at that pay level provides. of course, there's a variety of reasons against doing that both within the workforce (paying the new guy more than his superiors), as well as final product costs, but no one seems to want to adjust those things...

[Spuds]

Wasn't this a thread about climate change?

[x808drifter]

Originally Posted by Spuds

Wasn't this a thread about climate change?

I thought it was about Florida Man.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by x808drifter

I thought it was about Florida Man.

I think every thread devolves into being about Florida Man

[x808drifter]

Originally Posted by Spuds

I think every thread devolves into being about Florida Man

You're not wrong.

[IceFyre13th]

[Irace86.2.0]

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by x808drifter

I thought it was about Florida Man.

Researches Florida Man.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

Researches Florida Man.

this popped up in my news feed the other day.

peak florida man.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/02/man-wi...for-ride-home/