oxjox @ oxjox @lemmy.ml

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Joined

2 yr. ago

I did.

I’ll concede this point to you even though the top answers are largely skewed due to the physical size of these locations (Sweden is the most reasonable answer outside tiny Cuba and Monaco).

Did I say make as much money as possible?

A business should make as much money as needed to cover overhead and make enough profit to meet their business plan. The better that company is at achieving that goal, the more valuable that company is.

I reject this notion that all businesses exist to exploit workers.

The wealthy people I know are all very involved with helping the poor and sick. They're genuinely good people from what I personally know of them. Are they doing what the people need most? I don't know. I know my own city has often invested in programs that weren't really helping those it intended to help. From what I learned this past year, it's striking how little government knows who is in need of what.
This is what we should be having more conversations about. How is it that we have this powerful tool to speak our minds yet so many people are being ignored? Or voting against their own interests.

Where would the socialist money come from to maintain the hospital? Local tax payers? The State? The Fed? I can tell you the region these hospitals are crumbling in are themselves crumbling. The people who haven't left are poor and have no taxes to help.

That would be one that no one alive today will ever see in the United States.

ooohh. You were so close. Then you went and make up a fictitious story for which you have no evidence of. Where are you getting this idea that someone is just sucking up money?

The money these people make are agreed upon by the board of directors and the shareholders. Some make money by way of a paycheck and some by stocks options. The UHC guy was making $20 million a year. Is that ridiculous? I dunno. I've never run a health insurance company. Did he bring $20 million of value to the company? Maybe.

It's not about the effort someone puts in, it's the value they generate. I can tell you that I put in very little effort in my job but the value I offer the company is significant. If you go to school and spend hundreds of thousands on a degree, the value you present the company, presumably, is more significant than the value someone without an education brings.

What's not given enough attention is the peacocking among CEOs. I think a large portion of their salaries is just to be competitive with other businesses in the same industry. This CEO makes $X, this one makes $X+. This is part of a resume that gives their next employer a place to work from. That's insider business based on bullshit.

I won't begin to defend the staggering amount of money Bezos is still making while not working at Amazon. However, he's doing good things with the money he has. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Philanthropy

But, I get your point. We shouldn't have people in this world so wealthy that they can donate $100 Million to food banks. You think there's a version of this world where that $100 million wouldn't be needed because the billionaires are sucking it up off the top.

I love the idea of this utopia. I've yet to hear a compelling argument about how to achieve this. I'd like to think we start with fixing the media and elections. Assuming we get the child of FDR and Bernie Sanders in office, what next? How do you convince the people that amassing personal wealth without sticky Uncle Sam fingers is bad? How do you convince these Unites States that a rising tide lifts all ships? Is it a bullet flying in the wrong direction or are we on a pendulum?

I didn't ask bout doctors - I said hospitals. The answer to that would be Guinea Bissau. I'll concede this point to you even though the top answers are largely skewed due to the physical size of these locations (Sweden is the most reasonable answer outside tiny Cuba and Monaco).

Help me figure this out. In the region I've lived my whole life, older hospitals that were initially established by churches have been left to crumble or have been bought out by other corporate run healthcare facilities. So, without these new hospitals, in your mind, what would the future of health care have been in this region?

Accurate.

Are you asking if a worker is paid 100% of the profit made from a single thing?

I would certainly hope not. A business has countless more expenses outside the cost of the worker to make the widget. The worker may very well be the cheapest overhead for the production of that widget. After things like rent, electric, taxes, waste disposal, maintenance, the cost of raw materials, the salaries of the entire company, etc., I would hope that a manufacturing company would retain as much profit as possible to ensure the business could stay open, employing staff without laying them off, even during a time of slow sales.

Now, if that "widget" were something like software, or a CGI artist, I would like to think that ratio would be nearly reversed. Aside from computer hardware, you're paying that worker for their raw talent, education, and expertise with little other overhead for that department aside from management.

You actually believe insulin would exist in a communist society? And hospitals?

People taking on medical debt or dying due to poor health care has nothing to do with billionaires. It does have to do with capitalism. It has to do with a government who rejects social safety programs in favor of wall street run corporations. This has been the republican agenda for decades and people keep voting for it.

You're telling me something that sounds like an uninformed opinion. Do you have numbers or are you getting your news from TikTok?

Yes. In their homes and places of employment. Listening to them on the phone instructing staff. Watching them in staff meetings. Watching them direct charitable organizations to ensure the integrity of the organization is maintained regardless of all else.

Isn't it the boss who hires the people who hire the people and tell the people how the company should operate? Your argument is that it's immoral to be a business owner?

What companies are paying people less than the value of the work they're doing? Is it your opinion that every company is doing this? What is it that you know about these companies and the value of these workers to come to this conclusion?

It sounds a lot like you don't understand how owning company works. The owner gets a paycheck like everyone else. The profit generated by the company, if any, goes in the bank. This money is used to hire more workers, invest in new opportunities, or saved for a variety of reasons.

I own the book. Thanks.

has made minorities feel wildly unrepresented

I dunno, I think it's the white rural working class who've spoke loudest over the past few years. I'm not one of them but I think it's important to reflect on the fact.

I agree with everything you're saying but I would add that we've chosen to take an isolationist attitude towards our neighbors who seem threatening or unrelatable to us. Added, the pandemic induced reliance on screens to do everything, we're just growing further and further away from each other. The media, the ones promoting this initial story, are the ones most responsible for dividing us. They do it for ratings, for stock growth, for promotions and payouts. They do not do it to educate the public. They are not the fourth pillar of democracy.

The unbreakable walls of division are closings off to bothering to really understand anything. So many people are quick to read a headline and make an unfounded argument for or against it. Does anyone care about this man's family whom I'm sure loved him? Does anyone care that he wasn't even a $100 millionaire, never mind a billionaire? No one is telling the good stories about good billionaires. Those who build hospitals, contribute to fighting childhood cancer, who support public schools and build homes for the homeless. Even when given opposing facts about a topic, all people are set in their opinions. It's a defense mechanism because people are terrified to be kind to one another. Because the media has told us this is what we are now.

Actually, someone with first hand experience. Where have you acquired your knowledge of the matter?

Tell me how the basic economic principles of any business ever are immoral.

We're not arguing whether or not you can earn a billion dollars. If that's your argument, being a billionaire has nothing to do with it. You're just pissed at people making maximum money for minimum effort and you think that's unethical. That's call an uninformed opinion.

I just don't waste my time being angry at others for things that have nothing to do with me. I see how my life and the world around me has been benefitted from those with more money than me and I'm grateful. There's a good argument for it but with the alternative being Communism, I just don't see humans accepting a lifestyle of stagnation.

How much are they being underpaid and overworked?

How could you possibly say that?

It's a matter of economics. You buy a thing. You invest in it. It generates value. You sell it for more than you put into it.

At no point does this require "exploiting" anyone.

Your argument just seems like, without any evidence, you think business owners aren't increasing people's salaries as the company's value increases.

Here's the story of Sponge Daddy. Small company of about 130 people worth about a billion dollars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_Daddy

Let's say it costs me a dollar (including payroll) to make a thing and I sell it for two dollars. In the first week of sales, I run out of stock. I now need to reduce demand to keep up with manufacturing so I increase the price to four dollars. I increase production which includes more factories and salaries which increases the costs to two dollars. I now increase the retail price to five dollars. Within a three years, I've sold 500 million things. I've generated $2.5 billion in revenue. My overhead is $1 billion, profit is $1.5 billion. How am I exploiting anyone? By not choosing to increase people's salaries? What If my economic plan is to cover costs in case of a pandemic? What if I plan to create more products and need the extra revenue to invest in the new business opportunity? I need to buy more warehouses and employ more people as my business grows.

I can assure you, you have a fictitious image of what a billionaire is. I certainly don't know them all, but there aren't many and I know more than a few.

hur dur hur dur