[onlooker]

Actually Cog 60 to 80% of all new jobs come from small businesses
As for corporate profits they mostly go the shareholders and high executives. Why do you think their is such a large and growing disparity between the rich and poor. As for the great dole out from government welfare programs it is barely sufficient to live and yet in the last few years more and more people have resorted to food stamps and such programs because the job creation is stagnant and wages are low relative to cost of living. Oh and one final statistic Small businesses employ 57% of the country's private workforce
So corporations are not the great benefit you describe. In fact many are subsidized by government. The fossil fuel companies and agriculture companies to name a few.

[Cog]

You do of course realize that many small businesses are incorporated as LLC's or S corps. A way to limit liability and enhance profits.

Corporations do not exist as a cash cow for governments to tap into. They exist to enhance profits. A side benefit is that they provide jobs so that people can live their lives. The fossil fuel and ag business generate a great deal of positive good for society in that their products can be obtained for lower costs if they are not interfered with by the government. They also provide goods essential to a modern society. Not everyone wants to live in mud huts and grub out simple existence. If you desire such a life then by all means pursue it.

If you are ambitious and willing to exert some effort you may never be rich but you can live a very comfortable life. If you want to sit on your butt, you deserve to struggle on the dole you are provided.

[onlooker]

Well Cog, i differentiated small business from corporations for the following reasons:
First, large corporations are the ones who can hire a fancy legal team to allow the to use any and all loopholes to not pay taxes. Second, they are the ones mostly being subsidized as in "Too big to fail" . Third, they are the ones who go offshore and take jobs with them. Finally, they earn huge profits yet are the ones most automated and said profits go mostly to shareholders and executives.

[ralfy]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cool-story-bro

[Cog]

Well Cog, i differentiated small business from corporations for the following reasons:
First, large corporations are the ones who can hire a fancy legal team to allow the to use any and all loopholes to not pay taxes. Second, they are the ones mostly being subsidized as in "Too big to fail" . Third, they are the ones who go offshore and take jobs with them. Finally, they earn huge profits yet are the ones most automated and said profits go mostly to shareholders and executives.

Why should profits go to anyone else except the executives who run the company and the shareholders who invest in it. Where did this idea come that you are entitled to the fruits of someone else's labor? Marx, Alinsky?

If I am in investor, and I am, I would want a board of directors fired who did not maximize my returns by using every single tax law to their advantage. When I do my individual tax return you better believe my tax preparer uses every tax break he can legally give me. That is what I pay him for.

[ennui2]

Here is my "cog" moment.

I'm driving home from work during rush-hour at 70MPH in the fast-lane, which is marked 55MPH mind you, which nobody honors, and there's a guy behind me. He's bearded, arm sticking out of the window. Driving a sh*tbox. He's not tailgating me or anything, but at some point the other lane opens up and he passes me on the right, and then gets in front of me in the fast lane, and raises his middle finger.

In other words, 70mph wasn't fast enough. It had to be, I dunno, 71, or 72MPH based on how far he seemed to get in front of me...for maybe 2 minutes, as the traffic (predictably) backed up.

Remember, it's rush-hour. You can't expect smooth sailing. So he winds up in the lane to the right of me and I actually get back in front of him during bumper-to-bumper driving.

So his whole issue, that I was going too slow in the fast lane, was pointless, and he probably wound up getting to where he wanted to go at the same time regardless of my driving behavior.

There are countless situations like this that you get into. How do you navigate through them? I could have given him the finger back, egged him on, and gotten into some sort of roadside fight. Instead I just turned the other cheek.

My point being that these situations are more of a test of your own character than they are reasons to shake your fist in frustration at the world. Don't get sucked into a rage over it.

[onlooker]

What about the workers who work in the company should not they get some of the profit. Instead of a lousy salary with no benefits ala Walmart. I ask you Cog, in the name of profit is it okay to deny people health coverage, spoil the environment, outsource jobs, pit workers against each other in a race to the lowest level, poison people (cigarette companies)? Because that is what these large corporation do nationally and internationally.

[Cog]

What about the workers who work in the company should not they get some of the profit. Instead of a lousy salary with no benefits ala Walmart. I ask you Cog, in the name of profit is it okay to deny people health coverage, spoil the environment, outsource jobs, pit workers against each other in a race to the lowest level, poison people (cigarette companies)? Because that is what these large corporation do nationally and internationally.

Your pay or worth to a company is what you bring to the table. If you are industrious and pay your dues, you will rise in both pay and responsibly in a corporation. If you are content to go through the motions, then you are going to be stuck at whatever level the company thinks you are worth. Even in so called dead end jobs like McDonalds or Wal-mart there is room to move up if show some hard work and ambition. If you can't hack it there, you aren't going to hack it anywhere. Wal-mart has no obligation to pay you more than what you are worth. You social justice warriors are free to donate your money to correct what you see as corporate injustices, if you are so inclined.

As far as environment and safety goes, I said earlier that there are things that government does well. The EPA and OSHA have cut down on deaths and injuries in the work place and have improved the quality of the environment since their inception. Those two agencies did go off the deep end once in a while but overall they do have a good regulatory function.

I do not pit myself against other employees. My competition is not with them, it is with myself and what I am willing to do to reach my goals. What I have done is start at the very bottom in my career and through education, some hard work, and showing value to my various employers, rose in pay and management level until I felt comfortable. I have no desire to run a company or own one. I know those guys can reap great rewards but I have seen the hours they have to work. They are on the clock 24/7. Not worth it to me. I like my time off to spend with my family and enjoy my hobbies. But to each his own. I care not one whit what my company president makes. Doesn't affect what he pays me since I negotiate with him on what I think I am worth. If I don't like his pay, I will go elsewhere.

[Plantagenet]

in the name of profit is it okay to deny people health coverage...

Puh-leeze---lets try to stay up to date with current reality rather then just reciting tired out-of-date litanies of complaints.

No one can be "denied health coverage" in the USA now. There is both an individual mandate and a business mandate, and Wal-Mart falls under the Obamacare business mandate. Its time to stop all the complaints about people being denied health coverage and start giving thanks to Obamacare for successfully bringing high quality, inexpensive, universal healthcare to the USA.

[Newfie]

Cog,

You sound like me 15 or 20 years ago.

But somewhere along the road I started to see things differently, read a lot about human nature, decided I was being used, a tool.

I'm not against hard work or productivity, not at all.

I am against wasteful baloney that passes as work. And that is the majority of what we have in America. By far.

[Keith_McClary]

At least with corporate welfare, if there is such a thing, society gets a payback in the form of employed people.

So you're OK with the bank, insurance and auto bailouts? Do you know anyone who is employed as a result?

[Outcast_Searcher]

Actually Cog 60 to 80% of all new jobs come from small businesses
As for corporate profits they mostly go the shareholders and high executives. Why do you think their is such a large and growing disparity between the rich and poor. As for the great dole out from government welfare programs it is barely sufficient to live and yet in the last few years more and more people have resorted to food stamps and such programs because the job creation is stagnant and wages are low relative to cost of living. Oh and one final statistic Small businesses employ 57% of the country's private workforce
So corporations are not the great benefit you describe. In fact many are subsidized by government. The fossil fuel companies and agriculture companies to name a few.

Well, if you folks on the left don't like government subsidizing corporations and in fact bailing out bad businesses, then STOP VOTING FOR the clowns who are all for expanding government (and the redistribution programs that the left loves so much) at every turn. Funny how those are only OK for people who basically produce little or nothing.

You'd think that tax rules in general were simple, reasonable, or fair.

[SeaGypsy]

What about the workers who work in the company should not they get some of the profit. Instead of a lousy salary with no benefits ala Walmart. I ask you Cog, in the name of profit is it okay to deny people health coverage, spoil the environment, outsource jobs, pit workers against each other in a race to the lowest level, poison people (cigarette companies)? Because that is what these large corporation do nationally and internationally.

Your pay or worth to a company is what you bring to the table. If you are industrious and pay your dues, you will rise in both pay and responsibly in a corporation. If you are content to go through the motions, then you are going to be stuck at whatever level the company thinks you are worth. Even in so called dead end jobs like McDonalds or Wal-mart there is room to move up if show some hard work and ambition. If you can't hack it there, you aren't going to hack it anywhere. Wal-mart has no obligation to pay you more than what you are worth. You social justice warriors are free to donate your money to correct what you see as corporate injustices, if you are so inclined.

As far as environment and safety goes, I said earlier that there are things that government does well. The EPA and OSHA have cut down on deaths and injuries in the work place and have improved the quality of the environment since their inception. Those two agencies did go off the deep end once in a while but overall they do have a good regulatory function.

I do not pit myself against other employees. My competition is not with them, it is with myself and what I am willing to do to reach my goals. What I have done is start at the very bottom in my career and through education, some hard work, and showing value to my various employers, rose in pay and management level until I felt comfortable. I have no desire to run a company or own one. I know those guys can reap great rewards but I have seen the hours they have to work. They are on the clock 24/7. Not worth it to me. I like my time off to spend with my family and enjoy my hobbies. But to each his own. I care not one whit what my company president makes. Doesn't affect what he pays me since I negotiate with him on what I think I am worth. If I don't like his pay, I will go elsewhere.

That's how I think about work too. Funny how by not refusing a shift for 6 months, being prompt, reliable, forthright & looking for opportunities for the company puts you in the top 5-10% of in house candidates for promotion; but so many seem surprised by this.

My priorities at work are- decency of team mates, flexibility, a no bs boss.

Before I even started where I am was 2 bucks an hour up on guys there 20+ years. I just found the owner a return back load of recycling paper which pays for 80% of the fuel cost for my runs for the week. In the past I have cleared close to 2 grand a week on a base wage of 25 an hour, by juggling shifts & minimum attendance rates, travel rates & accumulated a chock full passport of stamps. (Lmao)

[Cog]

Exactly SeaGypsy. Could not have said it better.

If you are the sort of guy, whose main ambition is to run to the parking lot, to be the first one to leave the company, then it is evident to your management where your priorities lie in life. It really doesn't take much effort to outshine your peers if you want to move up the corporate ladder. Even sticking around for five minutes, off the clock, and asking your boss about the next day's schedule or to offer some ideas on how to make the company more profitable, makes you different than a lot of your co-workers.

But going back to the ice woman. I do not know what set of circumstances put her in the position of buying ice with an EBT card. The EBT card was designed to purchase food and not for you to subsidize your life-style at the expense of myself and others.

What I do know is that many people make the choices that put themselves in a bad way. That is evident both in the work world and non-working world.

[Newfie]

Sea Gypsy,

You are right, in your limited context. Where I grew up most all work was paid by the piece, you got paid for what you did, not by the hour.

That is not how most of the (western or US) world works.

With all of our fossil fuel slaves we have very little need for people to work. If you have a job that you enjoy and where you feel you are doing meaningful work be happy, for you are lucky.

It is human nature to want to participate and to be meaningful. Although I admit it seems we are trying to breed that out of ourselves.

None the less In the context of our current (screwed up) culture that woman is providing jobs to government assistance employees, social service workers, health care workers, food providers, etc. in our current economic model she is a valuable economic driver precisely whe is a consumer, someone who demands services, thus fueling the economy.

To take this line of argument to the absurd ..... She is more valuable than you. She is simply doing the job of creating need. You, on the other hand, are a person how requires to feel good about themself by doing seemingly useful work.

All she wants is to be taken care of. EBT and done.
You want meaning in life. So now we have to find you some work to do, hard.

Note, nowhere do I condone this system. I'm just reporting how it works. It is an artifact of cheap fuel and too many people. It will change, painfully.

[dinopello]

I do not know what set of circumstances put her in the position of buying ice with an EBT card.

Occam's Razor - she needed to keep something cold.

Probably her old-ass refrigerator up an died and she had no money to fix.

Needed ice to keep food from spoiling.

My folks lived with a real "ice-box". The guy would deliver ice in his horse drawn cart for your ice-box.

[Cog]

Newfie,

Under your absurd theory of how things work, I should cut out the middle man entirely, i.e. the woman. I can calculate all that she consumes in a year, ice, toilet paper, taco chips, and simply put them in the pile and burn them. There you go, I have replaced an undependable consumer and got you your consumption. My God man, the woman might actually save some of her money and screw up your whole model. We can't be having that.

Social justice warriors or just the pure lazy never cease to amaze me with their insights of how humans operate and how a real economy works.

[Newfie]

Didn't say I like it.

Yes it is absurd.

But, once you look at the economy as it actually works, you can see it fits. Absurd as it is.

I have heard a more dramatic telling of this story but this what I could find easily.....

When Keynes was trying to make his point, he suggested the government pay workers to dig a hole in the ground and then fill it in again; the point he was trying to make is that it doesn’t really matter what you spent the money as long as you spent it.

Another tale is that Keynes deliberately knocked his napkin on the floor in a restaurant. His reason was that he wanted to make sure the waiter was ‘fully employed’

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/3062/ ... mics-work/

From this view point your ice lady is a hole in the ground or a soiled dinner napkin or an employment opportunity.

[Outcast_Searcher]

With all of our fossil fuel slaves we have very little need for people to work.

So in your world, employers have employees just for fun? Because they want to greatly lessen their profit margins? Because they are lonely and want more people at the office?

NO, they employ people because they need something to be DONE as part of running their business (or helping them with a personal/family need). And they are willing to pay a fair wage (given the rules and the competition) to get that thing done.

That doesn't say all businesses (or government jobs) are efficient, of course.

But by all means, when you can point out the specifics of this job-free nirvana you claim, where everyone can just lie around and be taken care of with no work, please let me know. Somehow, in the the real world, I've missed that experience. I've also missed the house, yard, appliances, car, body, etc. that all magically take care of themselves -- sad, for I have to hire people to do some of those things, and do others myself.

Now, the time is rapidly approaching where a SERIOUS number of low skilled jobs will no longer be needed due to computers and automation. Cries (and political pressure/laws/regulation) for arbitrarily high wages for such workers will ensure it is done ASAP. Businesses need to make a profit over time to survive.

And of course the process has already been occurring for a long time. The automated checkout lines substituting one job with some minor computer skill for four jobs running a cash register being a really obvious and widespread example which has hit a LOT of jobs in recent years. The new McDonald's self service kiosk idea is all about eliminating jobs.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/10/robots_ ... isruption/

And there will be a LOT more automation where such kiosks are coming from. When self driving cars become more reliable than human drivers, that should kick a lot of jobs to the curb. And of course hordes of things we can't imagine yet. McDonald's is pursuing a lot of automation to prepare food without people, for example.

Now, how we deal with that as a society is open to question. One way would be far shorter work weeks. (And accepting a lower standard of living for doing less -- which most people will be profoundly unhappy about, at least at first). But for people who lack the skill and brain-power to do ANY job utilizing a certain level of technology -- they'll have to be on the dole in some form. Administrating the dole and fighting for more of the dole (no matter how much it is) should be a tremendous growth industry though, given how government works. Always nice to have a "bright" spot.