i honestly believe that when a company's profits skyrocket, people should get bonus'

[joshh]

No.

It should obviously be merit and value based. The point is that it is not.

You accept a job at business A with a salary of X a year with benefits (some better than others). And because the company makes big bucks all of a sudden you *deserve* a bonus. Is that correct? Regardless if you have absolutely zero risk in the business or not.
This thread is a big fat fucking generality. It's about individuals. If a person that owns a business is of moral character he pays his employees according to what his conscience tells him is fair. But he's still the one who took the risk and still takes the risk of losing everything. If he decides to sit on that money and not give out bonuses, you have every right to pack your shit and find another job.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Yeah, its not like the CEO worked his ass off and paid his dues to climb the ladder to get to his position, he just got handed the keys to the boardroom and the executive washroom on his 21st birthday, right?

[Massimo]

Yeah, its not like the CEO worked his ass off and paid his dues to climb the ladder to get to his position, he just got handed the keys to the boardroom and the executive washroom on his 21st birthday, right?

Unfortunatly that is the concensus of the magority of the western world.

[Dozyproductions]

Am I supposed to list every single rich man in the world? Those were just a few examples.

And did you really just tell me to read fiction as if I should get some actual knowledge from it? It's called fiction for a reason!

We might not of learned how everything works in our brain but we know how people tick. Some people are more sensitive to that than others, hence Orwell. If you can't find the lesson in his writings then I can't say anything further.

[z31maniac]

And when you get a bonus everyone that works for you should also get a bonus. I.E. the lawn boy, the plumber, the HVAC guy, the washer dryer repair guy, your auto mechanic etc right.

No, it's a profit-sharing bonus. It's just they now "justify" giving less of it to the employess on the floor and more to guys in the mahogany offices.

[herbivor]

I see what you did there.


Your post leads the reader to believe that what your advocating for is nothing like what the founders built and want something more like modern Europe.

Whether or not you think our government and constitution is the best in the world does not mean it cannot be better and more relevant to our generation. There are numerous faults with our system that we just accept as permanent immutable establishments. The laws we continue to pass that must comply with our current constitution and system of governance have little impact to improve the welfare of all persons and our country as a whole. With this government and constitution we will always have a large income gap, extreme poverty and extreme wealth. We have never had anything but that. All we can do is think hard, work hard, and try to live a happy life.

[cale]

That is what gets me. I don't mind the CEO getting a fat pay rise, but it should be equal for others who work just as hard as him.

It should yes, and in smaller businesses it often does. However how are you going to control that without significant govt intervention in all business relating to raises? Should there be a govt supplied raise/promotion so that employees at all levels are treated equally? This isn't grade school, you don't get an equal number of grapes at snack time because it's not fair someone else has more and I'll be damned it a govt imposes a maximum grapes per person law.

[gwb72tii]

Whether or not you think our government and constitution is the best in the world does not mean it cannot be better and more relevant to our generation. There are numerous faults with our system that we just accept as permanent immutable establishments. The laws we continue to pass that must comply with our current constitution and system of governance have little impact to improve the welfare of all persons and our country as a whole. With this government and constitution we will always have a large income gap, extreme poverty and extreme wealth. We have never had anything but that. All we can do is think hard, work hard, and try to live a happy life.

can you name any other economic system in world history that has not had extreme income inequality?
todays most extreme examples are quasi socialistic/statist economies, like north korea and china, exactly the economic models that are supposed to prevent such a thing from happening

[frankenbeemer]

Indeed, why is inequality inherently bad?

Poverty, of course, is a bad thing. But is inequality? After all, if we doubled everyone's income tomorrow, we would eliminate an enormous amount of economic hardship. Yet, inequality would actually increase. As Margaret Thatcher said about those who obsess over inequality, "So long as the [income] gap is smaller, they would rather have the poor poorer."

Fair is a word made up by children to taunt their parents. As best I recollect Jeff Cooper.

[Ryan Stewart]

No, it's a profit-sharing bonus. It's just they now "justify" giving less of it to the employess on the floor and more to guys in the mahogany offices.

Compensation is one of the easiest things to justify, and with actual numbers too.

Your compensation, in an effective organization, should be tied to the value you bring to the organization. A janitor, while important, doesnt bring that much value to the organization and the value he brings is easily replaced.


But look at an effective CEO. Would you argue that Steve Jobs' compensation regarding his ownership benefits should have been more closely tied to the janitorial staff? A good CEO can make a company billions more, a shitty CEO can cost a company billions (look at HP). The only thing that is annoying is they always setup compensation structures that dont adequately cost executives that fail.

[Ryan Stewart]

. double

[LBJefferies]

Fair is a word made up by children to taunt their parents. As best I recollect Jeff Cooper.

So true. It's funny because I can remember growing up, in school and on the TV everybody was always talking about equality. Equal this, equal that, equality for everyone! In reality, equality doesn't make any sense. As a word and as a concept it crumbles pretty quickly under criticism. No two people are alike or should be alike. The differences between the genders, races, cultures, economic classes, etc. are what make life interesting. I like having the plethora of choices that I have. If everybody was "equal", there wouldn't be all these choices. We would all be identical robots living in cubicles, procreating hermaphroditicaly and with the same exact memories as every other. Life wouldn't be worth living.

[frankenbeemer]

. double

Not my sentence, but I think I agree, it should be future tense.

[RobertK]

So true. It's funny because I can remember growing up, in school and on the TV everybody was always talking about equality. Equal this, equal that, equality for everyone! In reality, equality doesn't make any sense. As a word and as a concept it crumbles pretty quickly under criticism. No two people are alike or should be alike. The differences between the genders, races, cultures, economic classes, etc. are what make life interesting. I like having the plethora of choices that I have. If everybody was "equal", there wouldn't be all these choices. We would all be identical robots living in cubicles, procreating hermaphroditicaly and with the same exact memories as every other. Life wouldn't be worth living.

I think people forgot that "equal" applies to personal opportunity and not to personal compensation.

[LBJefferies]

I think people forgot that "equal" applies to personal opportunity and not to personal compensation.

Even equal opportunity doesn't really hold up to criticism. No two schools are alike, no two cultures are alike. Everybody has different opportunities.