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Originally Posted by Flames in 07
Own stock in that company and you just made money. Your story telling to teach us how business works is very biased.
Maybe we should spend more timing trying to train for jobs that actually add value, rather than defend ancient turf that really doesn't serve society anymore. If your job isn't needed and/or a union had to fight to prop up your salary that is welfare. It's just paid to you in a different way. When you have too much of the society on welfare, be it formally through the government, or fake jobs that make people feel better, to the point where the people actually creating the value can't support the system overall you have Canada in 2016. At what point do you look at the massive deficient the county likes to run now and ask yourself if maybe hiding behind unions instead of training to do something more valuable is maybe not the best way to spend a career?
If the market wants to pay someone to press the button that says Big Mac then great, but if it doesn't and that task is easily replaced, then nobody is better off by giving that guy a fake job. He should train for something more valuable and then he can make 40k and inject that into society.
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I'm sorry you don't agree with my "story telling".
The difference between your version of "welfare" and what you say is mine is quite simple, who pays for it.
Take Walmart for example, they are notorious for paying their employees peanuts to give you "rock bottom prices", meanwhile we as taxpayers have to subsidize their workers with our tax dollars to pay for welfare while they continue to record billion dollar profits.
Your example of a salary being proped up by a union being equal to welfare is a very good example of how economic situations get manipulated. Using Walmart as an example, if they paid all their staff $20/hour instead of minimum wage they would still be making billion dollar profits, yes they would be reduced in the short term, however those cuts would be subsidized by the fact that those employees would have more money to spend on things like...their merchandise! Less tax dollars would be needed to cover welfare, taxpayers would have more money to spend on things like...their merchandise! Would Walmart's $3billion annual profit take a hit? Yes. Would it drive them out of business? No. And instead of having us subsidize their workers with our tax dollars, which Walmart would prefer we spend in their stores, they would be "subsidizing" them for us. Instead of having a billion extra dollars go into an account and making interest that the owners of that company would never live long enough to ever spend or see their quality of life impacted by, more people would live above the poverty line. Corporate greed could try to fight this, they could try to raise prices, but if consumers use the only real economic power they have, they can set the market.
The argument could be made that by automating, a company like macdonalds is making their shareholders money so that's passing along profits, while that is true the impact of that profit sharing isn't as impactful economically as it would be to pay their employees better, the overall impact would sow the same benefits as Walmart. Automation could create a widerspread impact if macdonalds passed those savings on to consumers, but last time I checked my kids' happy meal has actually gone UP in price since they've started using those machines, since I don't agree with their gouging I try to give them as little business as possible.
It would be nice if everyone could afford to go to school, but the only way to do that would be to create a new tax funded program to make it happen. A lot of people want to learn and advance their careers, the sad fact is most people can't afford to or it is very difficult to do. Most people who had their way paid and were able to get a good career through hard work and being fortunate enough to not ever know what a student loan is, have to work full time through school, while raising children, while living with a disability or any combination of these things.
I know nothing of your past, and am not suggesting you had it easy, but would you not agree that people born without a silver spoon who are willing to work hard to advance their skills could do so more easily if they could work lesser skilled jobs while earning a living above the poverty line?
If more people could put themselves in a position to not have to settle for minimum wage jobs, there would be less minimum wage jobs to begin with since companies would have to attract overskilled workers to work for them by offering competitive wages to fill the void. This would reduce both subsidizing for education and welfare.
In other words it would be a step in the right direction.
It would only cost those big corporations some percentage points, which again is money that would never re-enter the economy, unless to build a new location, which only has a short term benefit since once that store is built, those construction jobs are gone and the employee jobs are only adding to the problem.
So what this rant is getting at is yes, we should invest in people so that they can advance, but if given the choice I'd choose to invest in them with my consumer dollars, at a business that can hire them and either train them or pay them enough so they can afford training themselves. Rather than invest in them with my tax dollars while my consumer dollars go no further than a bank account in a foreign country after I spend them. See how that helps everyone? Even Walmart wins since I'd have more money to spend at their store...and would actually consider doing if they better compensated their workers. Everybody wins!