Posted on 05/23/2004 4:27:06 AM PDT by sarcasm
$50K is about $25/hr and probably less since most programmers don't work "only" 40 hrs/wk
Seeing that S. Carolina is the only source of the M3 in the world, 100% of them.
That is a key point. Maybe even the key point to consider in this debate.
Commo problems... in my old shop we had to fix everything the imports programmed. Some of 'em would name objects or called routines after family member's names. No jive.
The local Manpower agency is offering jobs for eight bucks an hour to people who want to drive a half hour to Washington PA and work in a banking cal center. Oh, it's only four hours a day, evening shift.
Yes, $50K is $25./hour.
Then add 3 weeks' paid time off for vacations/holidays. Then add FICA, health insurance, FUCA, SUCA, and miscellaneous other benefits.
You get $40-$45/hour fairly easily.
Don't misunderstand me: I am not arguing that this is too large a figure; I think it's reasonable (and much of it is legally required.)
And that's fine... but too often it's senior/executive management wo benefit... NOT the stockholders.
Corporations are rogue beasts -- wild in growth, fueled by fiat money and no accountability except loyalty, fealty and a cut to the great Federal and Money-center "upstreams".
At the beginning we chartered them, and kept a unilateral sovereign's right to change or revoke that charter. It was once -- at the start -- that individuals were sovereign and the government was chartered (a non-revocable charter that, I hold too) and governments acting as agents of The People would issue charters containing restrictions and demanding fealty and preservations of interests of the People upon whose behalf such charters were issued.
Such interests include primary and dominant regard for mainataining National resources in manufacturing, engineering and technology -- not to mention jobs. Simple rule -- why should I allow you the use of my car or of my house if you shall be me no rent nor abide any rules nor cut me into the good profits -- not to mention not ruining my property and my own wherewithal? Yet that is what corporations do -- and know they claim the sovereignity of individuals and then some. They are Super-Individuals enjoying immuninties and priviledges no individual may claim.
No greater nor grotesquely porcine, and swarmily unctuous welfare mama is there than the great corporations!
That is rogue. Bad mojo. Rebellion, Trespass, Extortion and Theft.
Like dinosaurs they are all dead, and so big yet the death notice is long to travel to all parts of the leviathans. Should they not fall over on us, nor in their remaining mortal and morbid grotesque dances chance to step on any of us.
That is almost all I ask -- almost -- except that I too want my fair cuts of their flesh -- for we must eat and feast enjoyably on their dead corpses.
" Corporations are rogue beasts -- wild in growth, fueled by fiat money and no accountability except loyalty, fealty and a cut to the great Federal and Money-center "upstreams". "
Just remember, every dollar the federal gov't spends has to be made by the blood sweat, and tears of an individual, a small business owner, and corporations great and small.
It's hard to grasp, but one way is to go into a federal agency - pick commerce, or education - and look around at all the people - with no sense of urgency or purpose beyond watching the clock. Those that work hard, do so with futility, because very little that benefits the country actually goes on. Yet every federal employee must be paid.....and they get paid out of the toil of the taxpayer. It boggles the mind to see the lack of reverence for the taxpayers dollar. It is simply obscene.
It is the gov't, the political class that populates it that really needs fixing. They simply take and spend too much money.
While there are corporations and individuals that get rich off of gov't contracts - I view them as extensions of gov't - it is the vast number of small business that are the real engine of the economy.
No, I do not think returning to the days of gov't chartered business is a good idea. Let companies compete within a fair system. That they are offshoring just shows how bad an environment it is here in the US to have assets and employees. Companies do what companies do. Don't blame them for offshoring - they are only doing what they must to make a profit.
" The country as a whole cheered when they sent steel jobs overseas, thus decimating huge areas of PA, WV and Ohio"
Unions killed the steel industry there, making the cost of labor impossibly high. There is still a latent sense of entitlement in many of those areas, which is why they languish even today.
It is the cost of doing business that is driving high-tech offshore today. It's gov't not unions that are the driver this time. The effect is the same, though.
Hotdog, Where are you located and how many jobs have you interviewed for in the past 2 years?
Well the States of Delaware and Nevada would beg to differ! THey are big at low-cost corporations, and usually take a firm aggressive stance pro-corporation in any lawsuits. Usually -- because very recently the Delaware Courts made what may be a landmark ruling for a shareholder against the Corporation.
Still .. my bigger point, and one I'm stlll mulling around is that the very fundamental structure of the modern US corporation is busted. Irredeemably.. That is the ways that ownership are structured, and the ways that government oversight is applied -- regulation and original charter, recourse in courts of equity and liability in criminal courts -- all bulloxed up. Major.
Presently creates a bad ownership. Preverted in every direction. Doesn't lay our responsibility and anywhere close to properly specifiy who is due what, etc.
I'm suggesting that the "corporation" as a vehicle for doing business in close association, of easily trading shares of commonly owned property, of limiting liability -- that in entireity from charter, to what has grown up in case law and legislation, in regulation about both corporations, shareholders, officers and employees has to be completely redone.
I'm located in TN but work in plants all over the world. We don't have any plants here in TN but they let me move here (office in the home) so the wife could be close to the kids (since I travel so much). I haven't interviewed for any jobs in the past two years but I checked my history and can tell you I have been offered 14 jobs in the past 2 years. I'm happy where I'm at...yes I could make more money but money isn't everything to us. God then Family are the priorities.
"I think we're at risk of becoming a Third World country," Antman said.
Amen, I could move and get a job - uprooting my family and destroying my child's ties but I want to stay for my family's sake. Having paid off my house and having no debt makes me leery of acquiring any. I too am in TN but I have not had the experience you have. I have been out of the job market for a few years (long story) and just recently started looking. I have found there to be a glut of engineers in the Memphis area and have had headhunters offer me interviews almost everywhere but here.
If the subject is even brought up in Congress you'll see the Dow sink below 3,000 and the commencement of the next Great Depression (which won't be too good for the job market). An awful lot of the perceived value of American corporations stems from the legal advantages they possess.
Some. And some vehicle that provides limited legal liability to money-only investors is needed. If we expand "legal advantages" to mean more generally -- legislation that protects corporations generally beyond simple limited liability, or that gives them special and more valuable status in regulation, or garnering of contracts, or grants of exclusions in markets and territorys, or grants of patent-like copyright (e.g. look-and-feel) and patent, or outright grants of money, or discounted use of federal, state and city property, or a harsh rule of bakrupts for individuals with an easy one for corporations, or exculsive access to fiat money originations -- whwre those boons are garnered by bribery, emouliebnt and entangled alliance between legislators, politcal parties and corporations -- then yes we agee.
The stock prices reflect one thing: the publics wages and borrowings are being herded into those pens -- and those pens almost alone. The only alternative is government securities.
Let this come up in debate and the house will come down while the president dodges and equivocates. Gonna be an avoid at all costs issue I'd bet, that or a smile and pleasantries snowjob.
Yup we are headed to being a third world country besed not only on offshoring but also, illegal aliens, the belief that food stamps is farming when we import our food from abroad, welfare for people who multiply rather than learn ABCs etc.
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