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hostileuniverse
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Socialism fails again
#23972770 - 01/01/17 11:30 AM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Back in April we told you about Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who said he would pay every single one of his employees $70,000 annually.
Every single one, from the lowest skilled workers on up.
Now, as expected, Price has fallen on hard times financially, even having to rent out his own home.
Employees who work for Gravity are now leaving the company, “spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises.”
This was always going to be the outcome.
If everyone hits the jackpot, does anybody really win the lottery?
From BI:
When Dan Price, founder and CEO of the Seattle-based credit-card-payment processing firm Gravity Payments, announced he was raising the company’s minimum salary to $70,000 a year, he was met with overwhelming enthusiasm.
“Everyone start[ed] screaming and cheering and just going crazy,” Price told Business Insider shortly after he broke the news in April.
But in the weeks since then, it’s become clear that not everyone is equally pleased. Among the critics? Some of Price’s own employees.
Maisey McMaster — once a big supporter of the plan — is one of the employees that quit. McMaster, 26, joined the company five years ago, eventually working her way up to financial manager. She put in long hours that “left little time for her husband and extended family,” The Times says, but she loved the “special culture” of the place.
But while she was initially on board, helping to calculate whether the company could afford to raise salaries so drastically (the plan is a minimum of $70,000 over the course of three years), McMaster later began to have doubts.
“He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump,” she told The Times. A fairer plan, she told the paper, would give newer employees smaller increases, along with the chance to earn a more substantial raise with more experience.
From Fox News:
Dan Price, 31, tells the New York Times that things have gotten so bad he’s been forced to rent out his house.
“I’m working as hard as I ever worked to make it work,” he told the Times in a video that shows him sitting on a plastic bucket in the garage of his house. “I’m renting out my house right now to try and make ends meet myself.”
The Times article said Price’s decision ended up costing him a few customers and two of his “most valued” employees, who quit after newer employees ended up with bigger salary hikes than older ones.
Grant Moran, 29, also quit, saying the new pay-scale was disconcerting
“Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me,” he told the paper. “It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”
The Times said customers who left were dismayed at what Price did, viewing it as a political statement. Others left fearful Gravity would soon hike fees to pay for salary increases.
Brian Canlis, co-owner of a family restaurant, already worried about how to deal with Seattle’s new minimum wage, told Price the pay raise at Gravity “makes it harder for the rest of us.”
And to think, all of this came about within a few short months.
Liberal logic, for ya. One man with good intentions loses so much because he doesn’t understand how economics work.
Socialism: We all fail together!

http://www.youngcons.com/ceo-raises-salaries-to-70k-for-every-employee-now-has-to-rent-his-own-home-to-make-ends-meet/
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qman
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Bigbad is going to shit his pants and have a good cry after hearing about this, that man with his delusion concepts was his idol.
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hostileuniverse
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: qman]
#23972815 - 01/01/17 11:52 AM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
qman said: Bigbad is going to shit his pants and have a good cry after hearing about this, that man with his delusion concepts was his idol. 
he'll never hear about it, he's in his safe space. Free from the logic, reason, and those pesky facts that the rest of us are plagued with
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Zanthius
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Most socialists understand that you need an economic incentive for people to work harder, longer, and better. We just don't think this economic incentive should be so large that we get a society that progresses towards more and more economic inequality.
Dan Price shouldn't have given the same salary to everyone, but could perhaps have reduced the salary a bit for those earning most, and increased the salary a bit for those earning the least. Then there might still be an incentive for people to work harder, longer, better.
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akira_akuma
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: Zanthius]
#23972971 - 01/01/17 12:57 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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socialism is a system which provides fail-safe to parties that A: incur a break down in their current series of systems (to put it frankly) and B: to parties that wish to depart from the norm, which is capitalism. capitalism reigns, and it does so both figuratively and literally speaking. that's why socialism exists. as a counter-balance.
to extent the current system to a "true capitalism", it'd be reverting to ways that have been "outdated", as it were, for more than a century now. with the extant population and corporate/institutional/bureaucratic foundations we have now, will it be functional? only to attempt it can give us the answers; you can calculate all day, but until you implement the plan you cannot know for sure if it'll work as expected.
both theories have merit and need to be expanded on, on their own merits, just as anything else in the political spectrum...even Anarchism (in the sense of a personal philosophy and not as a literal functioning non-governmental system- that probably would be unsustainable. but there should be room for debate, of course....)
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Zanthius
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Quote:
akira_akuma said: to extent the current system to a "true capitalism", it'd be reverting to ways that have been "outdated", as it were, for more than a century now. with the extant population and corporate/institutional/bureaucratic foundations we have now, will it be functional? only to attempt it can give us the answers; you can calculate all day, but until you implement
I think it is pretty obvious that laissez-faire capitalism isn't a very good system, since it doesn't take into consideration environmental costs, and health costs. Banks also naturally favor the rich, since they receive interest rate from their investments, and this will progress towards increasing economic inequality. Economic inequality is not good for the rich either, since it creates a much more unsafe environment for the rich.
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ballsalsa
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your opinion piece was written 1 1/2 years ago. I wonder if we can source a more recent story about this...
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/70k-ceo-labor-secretary-pbs-pundit-floats-seattles-dan-price-cabinet-position/
Quote:
Price has been celebrated and criticized for the $70,000 minimum salaries, but the resulting publicity has largely been a financial boon for the company. Gravity Payments said this summer that annual profits nearly doubled, to more than $6 million, following the announcement.
http://www.today.com/money/gravity-payments-70k-minimum-salary-ceo-dan-price-shares-results-t101678
Quote:
But that’s not what happened. Instead, sales skyrocketed after the announcement, and Gravity Payments continues to take on new clients at a rate it never had before. It reports nearly doubling profits in a year, from $3.5 million in 2014 to $6.5 million in 2015.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/05/26/does-70000-minimum-wage-work/84913242/
Quote:
In a nutshell: It’s complicated. Revenue at the Seattle-based firm has soared, though that largely appears to be due to the worldwide publicity generated by the announcement. Profits surged as well, but have dipped so far this year, in part because of the higher labor costs but mostly because of other one-time factors. Employees describe more comfortable, stress-free lives, allowing them to better focus on their jobs. And some other firms inspired by Price to lift wages dramatically are reporting positive outcomes.
The lesson? Big pay hikes may yield surprisingly beneficial results, especially in the current tight labor market.
What’s not in dispute is that the raises have been a bonanza for the company. Gravity was inundated with 4,600 customer inquiries the first two weeks after the announcement, vs. 30 a month previously. The company added 4,155 new clients last year, a 55% increase from 2014, compared to typical 5% growth. Some were inspired by the raises, while the news made others aware of Gravity’s discount prices. Yet several customers left in anticipation of rising fees and declining service or concerns about the implication of the raises for $15 minimum wage proposals, according to a Harvard Business School case study. Overall, however, customer attrition fell to about 5% from 9%.
Company revenue also leaped 35% to $21.8 million last year. And despite a $2 million increase in payroll costs, profits jumped from $3.5 million to $6.5 million.
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akira_akuma
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: Zanthius]
#23972995 - 01/01/17 01:08 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Zanthius said: I think it is pretty obvious that laissez-faire capitalism isn't a very good system, since it doesn't take into consideration environmental costs, and health costs. Banks also naturally favor the rich, since they receive interest rate from their investments, and this will progress towards increasing economic inequality. Economic inequality is not good for the rich either, since it creates a much more unsafe environment for the rich.
i think it's the best philosophy for a personal political intent...but it's not a productive system outside of barriers. there needs be some regulation, even the forefathers knew this at least to be so, as they understood fair taxation, as well- they did indeed. so you can't have a "tr00" unfettered laissez-faire capitalism, but a restrained one, with the ethos and logos and pathos, in mind whilst doing so, if you want to have the closest approximation to what is a "tr00 capitalism".
but a "tr00" one will never persist as an overarching system. there are some good trademarks, if you will, that i think we can take from it, though.
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hostileuniverse
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Quote:
akira_akuma said:
Quote:
Zanthius said: I think it is pretty obvious that laissez-faire capitalism isn't a very good system, since it doesn't take into consideration environmental costs, and health costs. Banks also naturally favor the rich, since they receive interest rate from their investments, and this will progress towards increasing economic inequality. Economic inequality is not good for the rich either, since it creates a much more unsafe environment for the rich.
i think it's the best philosophy for a personal political intent...but it's not a productive system outside of barriers. there needs be some regulation, even the forefathers knew this at least to be so, as they understood fair taxation, as well- they did indeed. so you can't have a "tr00" unfettered laissez-faire capitalism, but a restrained one, with the ethos and logos and pathos, in mind whilst doing so, if you want to have the closest approximation to what is a "tr00 capitalism".
but a "tr00" one will never persist as an overarching system. there are some good trademarks, if you will, that i think we can take from it, though.
The forefathers didn't intend for people to pay upwards of half their incomes to govt, big business be bailed out on taxpayer dimes or any of this other crony capitalist big government bullshit we have now
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Zanthius
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Quote:
hostileuniverse said: The forefathers didn't intend for people to pay upwards of half their incomes to govt, big business be bailed out on taxpayer dimes or any of this other crony capitalist big government bullshit we have now
With socialism poor working class people would be paying much less taxes, because it would have a highly progressive tax system, where the poorest do not pay taxes at all, while the rich pay a very high percentage.
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hostileuniverse
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: Zanthius]
#23973027 - 01/01/17 01:18 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Zanthius said:
Quote:
hostileuniverse said: The forefathers didn't intend for people to pay upwards of half their incomes to govt, big business be bailed out on taxpayer dimes or any of this other crony capitalist big government bullshit we have now
With socialism poor working class people would be paying much less taxes, because it would have a highly progressive tax system, where the poorest do not pay taxes at all, while the rich pay a very high percentage.
This is what we have now
And it only encourages laziness and apathy
When you say a segment of people should pay nothing and still reap all the benefits of a system. You skew incentive to work and basically enslave them.
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Zanthius
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Quote:
hostileuniverse said: When you say a segment of people should pay nothing and still reap all the benefits of a system. You skew incentive to work and basically enslave them.
Nope, because the incentive is still there of course. People that earn less than 10 000 USD / Year barely have enough to make it in the US. Why should the government take from them, when they are more likely of needing social help?
And of course there is still an incentive to earn more, because even if you pay more taxes, you also get more to yourself by earning more.
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ballsalsa
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Quote:
hostileuniverse said: When you say a segment of people should pay nothing and still reap all the benefits of a system. You skew incentive to work and basically enslave them.
Prove it.
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ballsalsa
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: ballsalsa] 1
#23973041 - 01/01/17 01:22 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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also, are we not going to acknowledge that the premise of this thread is an erroneous opinion piece?
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akira_akuma
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Quote:
hostileuniverse said: The forefathers didn't intend for people to pay upwards of half their incomes to govt, big business be bailed out on taxpayer dimes or any of this other crony capitalist big government bullshit we have now
yeah, no shit. but you have to manage what the fuck system IS, godfucking damnit. it's not the 17th century anymore. everything changes, but history, mayhaps. i'd suggest even history changes, just...slowly.
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qman
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: Zanthius]
#23973054 - 01/01/17 01:28 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Zanthius said:
Quote:
akira_akuma said: to extent the current system to a "true capitalism", it'd be reverting to ways that have been "outdated", as it were, for more than a century now. with the extant population and corporate/institutional/bureaucratic foundations we have now, will it be functional? only to attempt it can give us the answers; you can calculate all day, but until you implement
I think it is pretty obvious that laissez-faire capitalism isn't a very good system, since it doesn't take into consideration environmental costs, and health costs. Banks also naturally favor the rich, since they receive interest rate from their investments, and this will progress towards increasing economic inequality. Economic inequality is not good for the rich either, since it creates a much more unsafe environment for the rich.
The main reason for the current economic inequality is the high level of people relative to employment, wasn't it the socialists that wanted tens of millions of illegals to saturate the US labor market?
Also, shipping jobs out of the US also put labor in the US at a major disadvantage.
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qman
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: Zanthius]
#23973058 - 01/01/17 01:32 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Zanthius said:
Quote:
hostileuniverse said: The forefathers didn't intend for people to pay upwards of half their incomes to govt, big business be bailed out on taxpayer dimes or any of this other crony capitalist big government bullshit we have now
With socialism poor working class people would be paying much less taxes, because it would have a highly progressive tax system, where the poorest do not pay taxes at all, while the rich pay a very high percentage.
Why would a person take huge risks in the capital markets only to pay out 75% of income in taxes?
Do you understand the risks that come from trying to make millions of dollars in a competitive market place?
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qman
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: ballsalsa]
#23973061 - 01/01/17 01:33 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
ballsalsa said: also, are we not going to acknowledge that the premise of this thread is an erroneous opinion piece?
What is the status of Price and his company today?
Is his business model sustainable over the longer term?
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akira_akuma
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: qman]
#23973064 - 01/01/17 01:34 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
qman said: The main reason for the current economic inequality is the high level of people relative to employment, wasn't it the socialists that wanted tens of millions of illegals to saturate the US labor market?
Also, shipping jobs out of the US also put labor in the US at a major disadvantage.
then why are you here?
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ballsalsa
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Re: Socialism fails again [Re: qman]
#23973067 - 01/01/17 01:35 PM (7 years, 29 days ago) |
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Yeah! I would gladly take no risk and live at a subsistence level with no taxes to pay than be a multi-millionaire who has to pay taxes...
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