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DesideriScuri -> RE: Warren Buffet made $12 billion in 2016 (1/5/2017 5:22:30 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Edwird
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
As witnessed in this very thread, there is some idiot braying about millionaires, and stupidly and laughingly not even considering that the economy would be better if we paid trash collectors according to their worth to society.quote:
Yep, that's never going to happen. People are, generally, paid based on their ability and the relative pool of qualified applicants. How many people don't have the physical and mental aptitude to be trash collectors? It ain't for everyone, but there sure are a lot of people who meet the necessary qualifications.
The whole point is that the demand/supply function is an inappropriate and clearly inaccurate measure of the value of a worker to the company or to a national economy, or to society. That's why you don't hear me bitching about some people "making too much money," while also pointing out that there are way too many not making anything commensurate with their actual worth. It's part and parcel.
The far more pertinent (and accurate) assessment of worker value is productivity. For those who might disagree, I can assure the numbers back that up, as delivered by the business and econ departments at every uni, and worked to fine measure by the microecon folks hired by larger companies.
The chart in this article shows the disparity and ever-widening gap between productivity and hourly compensation from ~1972 onward.
I don't disagree that those with superior smarts or greater initiative and drive or a serious entrepreneurial thorn up their butt deserve greater compensation, not at all.
But financially punishing people who lack any of the above but still work their asses off every day is not helpful to any economy or society, and unconscionable on its own.
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Here's where things get messy, though. What happens when it isn't the worker that has gotten better, but the process? If I get one robot to replace 4 of the 5 workers and productivity stays the same, does that one worker get credit for being as productive as 5 people were? If that worker's job difficulty doesn't change, but - because of the robot - the total production increases, does that worker get that credit, too?
Who says he deserves "credit"? He just deserves to partake of the increase in wealth engendered by technological advance at least half as much as management does, -neither of whom had anything directly to do with that advance themselves-. That's what progress is all about. Unless you are on board with the argument that a person making $20k a year today is better off than John D. Rockefeller was in his time because the McDonalds worker has a cell phone and Rockefeller didn't. In any case, bringing up the "who get's credit" argument is not helping your cause. Both the worker and top management have desire to further smooth work flow, but only the engineer can possibly achieve that goal. The worker is not in a position to make such decisions to that end, but in the better companies management actually listens every once in awhile.
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If a person is more productive at a job than the next person doing the same job, I think we can agree both shouldn't be paid the same.
Good in concept, impracticable in real life. I know I've hated it when some slouch got the same pay as I did, at every level. This goes on at highest level of management too, lest it escaped notice. What I find amusing but more often annoying is the fantasy notion that only 'workers' are slackards.
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The company I work for just spent nearly a million dollars to make huge changes to a work cell. The result of those changes is that throughput has increased greatly, while the actual work requirements have made it easier on the workers. In the end, those workers are "more productive," but not because of anything they did, or any improvements in their work. The company spent money to make improvements. According to your line of thinking, not only should the company pay for those improvements, but then should pay the workers more money because the company paid for improvements.
According to your line of thinking, the company should retain 100% of the benefits (increased profits) obtained by technological advance, even though they merely effectively hired out the actual process itself. Neither the workers nor management did anything themselves to effect the improvement in productivity, but your line of thinking is that management should be rewarded for simply making a logical decision and workers should be punished for not being in position to make such decisions, even though they would likely do the same or better in that regard about half the time.
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If the engineers work to make a process more efficient so that the output is greater, but the overall impact on the worker is to decrease the amount of work, does the worker get more pay for the higher output even though they are putting in less work?
Excellent argument that upper management are highly overpaid. They didn't engineer the robots either.
All I can say is that I am absolutely amazed, just amazed (or even astounded) by the output and excellent service rendered by so many of those whom I know don't make more than $10 an hour, and I live in a cheap COL state. If I venture out into the world at all, I see "underpaid" stamped all over the place. "Not my country," I say, or at least I wish it wasn't.
The thing is, "upper management" decided to risk capital to improve productivity. The worker, however, did not.
Without the probability of an increased profit, risking capital will stop.
While management may not have built the robots, they paid those who did build them.
And, yes, at every level of a company, from the lowest wage worker on up, there are slackers. There are people who will look to game the system and do as little as possible to get by. I've never said anything to the contrary.
Why should a worker share in a process improvement when that worker didn't have anything to do with the improvement, didn't risk anything on that improvement, and, in at least some cases, isn't even having to work as hard because of the improvement?
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