Calculate Your Own Pay If You Were a CEO!

Hey, I know what you are!!! You're one of those Randite Freepers that parsy's been warning us about. You're an evil person!!! BEGONE, nasty Randite!

PS...I think I'm one, too!!! ;^)

Working hard and creating wealth is a good thing, but, like everything, it can be overdone. If, in your scramble to become wealthy, you leave broken husks of families strewn along the path, poor folks who the taxpayers have to bail out and help survive, then you bet your sweet bippy I am going to intervene.

Who died and made you philosopher-king? Utopian fools like yourself inevitably wind up enabling totalist monsters. Come to think of it, that's the history of the previous century, isn't it? An ocean of blood and the impoverishment of hundreds of millions in the service of the very bad ideas that you espouse evidently isn't enough to give you pause.

A modest observation: the sort of 'intervention' that you seem to want to foist on the rest of us is a recipe for a society of thugs, cannibals and looters. It's a recipe for a scenario that'll make the long fall of the Roman Empire look like an outing in the park. You and those like you absolutely will not survive it. The reason why you won't survive the consequences of your particular flavor of 'intervention' is that there are a lot of folks in this country who have learned well the lessons of the twentieth century - and they won't let you or those like you get away with it. Speaking personally - I won't allow you to get away with it. And I've got a lot of company. Send men with guns to confiscate my property, and I'll do my very best to cut them down where they stand. And then I'll come for you. You are not exempt from the consequences of your actions.

"You're one of those Randite Freepers that parsy's been warning us about. You're an evil person!!! BEGONE, nasty Randite!"

If you mean of the Aynne Rand type, I've tried to read "Atlas Shrugged" three times and each time have found it profoundly boring. Laying that aside, I've been called much worse, mostly by democrats. You should have heard them when I remarked that a new federal law denying welfare benefits to druggies and alcoholics was the best Christmas present I'd ever had.

Hate unions and union bosses. They are definately paid to much but like the corporations, only the head hunchos get the big money. We need to get after all of the blood suckers.

"We", as in the kind, compassionate, and all-knowing government?

No thank you.

"I can't think of a single instance and anyone paying an employee based on how much money his daddy has."

It happens all the time when daddy and the boss are the same person.

You ask some good questions. Why don't you hit that third link in the post and read that FAQ. I found it informative and logical. parsy.

"Who died and made you philosopher-king?" - A guy named Ralph. You probably don't know him.

"A modest observation: the sort of 'intervention' that you seem to want to foist on the rest of us is a recipe for a society of thugs, cannibals and looters." --Actually, I figure that businesses that don't pay their employees enough to live are "foisting" their costs onto us, making them the actual looters. Parsy.

In that case it is the boss's perogative and his right. Considering that the employee is the likely inheritor of the boss's wealth anyway, it can looked upon as an advance on the inheritance.

Oh, I did follow that link and found no answers to my questions. I found that a family of three needs x to be above the poverty line and I found that a family of four needs y to be there too. Which leads us back to the questions I asked. Since you seem to be so fond of living wage rhetoric, I'd like your answers to those questions.

You see there is a fundamental flaw in the living wage for a family rhetoric and that flaw is the definition of family. Essentially, you cannot define a living wage for a family without defining what a family is. How many adults in the family, how many children, and location are the principal variables. Once that is accepted, it follows that there cannot be one "living wage for a family" no more than there can be single definition of family. It also follows that the wages paid to the family must become a function of the number of persons, adult and children, in the family. IOW, Joe with a wife and two kids should get paid more than Sam who only has a wife. Do you see the problem here?

The problem is simply this, an employee has the choice of hiring Joe and paying him more or hiring Sam and paying him less for the same job. What would you do if you ran your own small business? Joe, even though he might be willing to work for the same wage as Sam is priced out of the marketplace. Is that what you want? Joe and his family on welfare simply because he has more kids?

There is a more fundamental problem as well. It is simply this. Advocates of living wage laws are essentially repeating a variation of the old adage: "To each according to his needs, from each according to his means." I'm sure that sounds familar to you. The worker is entitled to a living wage means that wages are determined by the needs of the employee rather than the ability of the employer to pay or the value of the services rendered by the employee. Surely you see this?

I figure that businesses that don't pay their employees enough to live are "foisting" their costs onto us, making them the actual looters. Parsy.

By that logic, maybe you should volunteer to pay an additional amount for everything you buy so that you are not foisting your costs on to those businesses. If you don't then you must be the actual looter.

It is not the business owners responsibility to figure out how much employees need to live on. That is the employee's responsibility. The employer's responsibility is to see that his payroll dollars are returning adequate value to remain in business and competitive in the market. The employee needs to make themselves valuable enough to get paid at a rate where they may live in the style that they deem adequate.

For an employer to pay employees more than they are objectively worth can be considered an act of charity. The boss who pays extra to the struggling parent because they are supporting children has acted kindly and that is his personal business. God does ask us to do such things when they can be done. However, when men and government attempt to coerce to do this the results will inevitably be disastrous for both employees and employers.

Surely you see this?

Actually, he doesn't and he won't, even if the concept bit his sorry marxist butt. Old parsy boy figures himself above the fray and vastly superior tothe likes of you and me. It won't be until he watches his family raped and slaughtered in the light of his burning home by the very mobs he's enabled that he may actually figure this out. Then again, he may not. Won't matter one way or the other by then...

Still waiting for answers to the questions.

"I've some living wage questions. How do you set it without being unfair? Suppose, a living wage is defined as that which will raise a family above the poverty level. To be fair, shouldn't it vary with the size of the family? Shouldn't a family living at the poverty level get a raise if they have another kid? Should a wage earner with fewer kids get less money that one with more? To be fair of course. What if a kid dies, should there be a wage cut?"

In a deconstructionist sense, the answers to your questions should be yes. In real life, however, a system such as this would prove very problematic. I like the "link" approach. It assumes a family of three. That way you are not subsidizing rampant reproduction, but neither are you forcing workers into peonage. Basing your wage base on this size family is realistic. Doesn't the average American have 1.6 to 2.1 kids or something like that. "Fairness" is a concept. It is not an absolute. (Methinks you are trying to force the debate into a continuum argument where the hapless debatee (moi) richochets back and forth between points on the line and makes an idiot out of himself. Natch, yours truly is too clever to fall for that!)

If your deconstructionist line of thinking were followed, silly results would ensue. Why not reduce the pay of a CPA whose non-working wife died from $75,000/year to $50,000? What you need to understand here is that you are dealing with floors and minimal amounts. While we probably cannot target wages to the amount of house note an employee has in the upper levels of salaries, we pretty well have the knowledge of what the minimum needs are for shelter. You can't hardly find a place to live for less than $400/month. On the other hand, you may spend $1,000/month or $2,000/month or $100,000/month. Notice also how at the higher levels of housing, you start to see wide swings in the amount of a "fair" wage. (In other words, a $1000 increase in monthly housing costs increases the necessary fair wage more than increases from $200 base to $500 base would.) In other words, it is easier to calculate fair/livable minimums than fair maximums. parsy.

"You see there is a fundamental flaw in the living wage for a family rhetoric and that flaw is the definition of family. Essentially, you cannot define a living wage for a family without defining what a family is. How many adults in the family, how many children, and location are the principal variables. Once that is accepted, it follows that there cannot be one "living wage for a family" no more than there can be single definition of family."

No. This is silly. You know going into the calculations that all families and all situations are not alike. You work toward a number that is as fair as possible to the greatest number. You pick a base family size. You pick a base estimated housing amount. You pick a base estimated utility bill. You pick a base estimated food cost, etc. Maybe this is easier for me to understand and do than you because of my training. For many years I was an accountant. I often had to project budgets, sales, costs, estimated profits,etc. You and your client know going into it taht these are estimations and would be a miracle if the number came out exact. That being said, there are sound techniques for making projections and they are useful vital tools. The setting of a base fair wage is nothing but a projection of the amount it requires for a certain size family to live above the estimated poverty level. Why are you making this so difficult? parsy.

"Old parsy boy figures himself above the fray and vastly superior to the likes of you and me. "

No. Being in the fray is where I have learned much of what I have learned. If I am superior in any way, it would be in my ability to open my mind and consider alternatives. However, I suspect that I am not actually superior to you in that way, it is probably just that you have not yet chosen to actually engage your critical faculties in this matter, considering the mere notion that you could be wrong, both unlikely and improbable. parsy.

"The setting of a base fair wage is nothing but a projection of the amount it requires for a certain size family to live above the estimated poverty level. Why are you making this so difficult? parsy."

Oh, I'm not making things difficult. I am merely pointing out that "fair living wage" is not an attempt at fairness, it is merely rhetoric designed to raise the minimum wage. I've carefully reviewed your comments and found that you did not address the issues. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in stating those issues. Let me try again.

If the objective is to provide a "living wage" to a family of a certain size, say four, aren't you being unfair to a family of a greater size? Why shouldn't that larger family also be entitled to a "living wage"? If the "living wage" for a family of four is $20k, then way should a family of three be paid the same? Aren't they being unfair to the family of four? They do have more money don't they? How is that "fair"? If "fairness" is the objective, you should be able to answer these questions.

BTW, I'm not an accountant but I have been an operations research analyst. I understand the process you've outlined. It boils down to this. Wages should be set based upon the needs of the employee and not upon the value of the employee to the employer. Don't you agree?

"Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in stating those issues. Let me try again. If the objective is to provide a "living wage" to a family of a certain size, say four, aren't you being unfair to a family of a greater size? . . .How is that "fair"? If "fairness" is the objective, you should be able to answer these questions. "

Well, I still think you are approaching this from the wrong angle. The "objective" is NOT to provide a family of 4 a fair wage vis a vis a family of 10. The "objective" is to provide a living wage period. Assuming a three person family is not out of line IMHO. Some expenses are the same whether you have 1, 2, 3, or 6 people in the family. For example, a car note is a car note, and GM don't sell it by the number of passengers. Other expenses, like food, can vary by number of family members, or individual size of the eater. You could drive yourself crazy trying to peg the wage to various caloric intakes. So just assume two average size adults and a child.

I think where you are going schizoid here is that you either assume, or want to believe, the purpose of the livable wage is to CIRCUMVENT the value of work and substitute the needs or whims of the recipient. (I suspect this is wishful thinking on your part so that you can call people like me a socialist, or worse, and not have to deal with these issues.) The purpose of creating a livable wage is to set some LOWER MINIMAL value to labor, not CIRCUMVENT.

Approach it like this: A wage is about the only way that modern people have to pay for food, shelter, medical care, vacations, toys, mansions, luxury autos. etc. Notice that some items in that list are BASICS. Everybody has to have a shelter. Everybody has to have food. Not everybody has to have a vacation, or a mansion, or caviar, or premium cable channels. So the purpose of setting a livable wage is cover the basic items. EVERY JOB no matter how menial, should at least pay for food, shelter, and clothing. It has to, or the taxpayer will have to cough it up.

If you are a skilled person, or one who has gone to college and actually learned something , or an experienced person, of course you will earn more. You will be more valuable and presumably more rare, and presumably more productive than an unskilled person. Your job will probably pay you enough for a new car every few years, and a nice house in the burbs, and a vacation, and premium cable. Your job will probably pay you enough to eat out a nice restaurant on occasion, or enough to buy steaks. This is fine and there is nothing wrong with this. A livable wage will not provide these niceties. But, a livable wage does not set a ceiling and restrict you on this. A LIVING WAGE simply sets the lower limits.

People are going to get the basics of life from one of two places - Their job, or their gov't. I think it better to get it from their job.

"BTW, I'm not an accountant but I have been an operations research analyst. I understand the process you've outlined. It boils down to this. Wages should be set based upon the needs of the employee and not upon the value of the employee to the employer. Don't you agree?"

Not really. There is a component to wages that MUST cover the basics. If you, as an employer are going to use 40 hours of a man's time, then you ought to cover those basics. Anything less makes you a thief and a looter. You, as an employer are not paying even the basic cost of your labor. If you want to spin this component and say it is based on the needs of the employee, then go ahead. I think that approach misses the point, however. I don't believe that is fair to tag every possible conceivable need of an employee to the employer. The job of gov't is to set a lower limit, and there are sensible ways to project an overall fair amount of hourly wage. It won't cover every contingency, but it can still be "fair" and "livable."> There are other components to a wage that are like gravy, or premiums. These components of the wage can pay for experience, value,demand, knowledge, seniority, whatever. There is nothing wrong with this, and a livable LOWER limit does not prevent this. I am still amazed that the simple notion that an employer ought to pay his employee a fair enough wage to live meets so much resistance here. But, have I answered your questions? parsy.

Hang in there - you don't have to accept the template that some will try to foist on you - that "greed is good!". You can be pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Israel, anti-porn and right on the decency issues without falling in with the greedsters. Some business types are decent and honest - some are as vile as any Democreep. Many of the worst of the corporats have such munificent separation packages they aren't really dependent on succeeding at their work - if the board removes them, they walk away with millions. The Republican party is OK on sloth - but they are too silent on greed, which is just as evil. FReegards and I'm glad you've got a heart for working people.