The Swiss vote to reject limit on pay

[Behrooz_C]

In other news....
Some common sense at last from the Swiss on an important issue. The Swiss have shown they have more understanding of economic issues and are more realistic, less reactionary, than most nations on earth. If such a vote was held in the UK, I am sure there are enough ignorant people who'd think limiting salaries would work!

[h=1]Swiss Voters Reject Strict CEO Pay Limits in Referendum[/h]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-24/swiss-voters-reject-strictest-executive-pay-limits.html

 

[Bi-honar]

I'm all for better mechanisms for income/wealth distribution, but this was indeed an absurd proposal for 3 reasons (aside from the all-important the government sticking its nose in the business of private or public companies):

1 - They had already approved that "fat-cat" initiative making shareholders' decision on management pay binding as the article points out, which made this initiative even less relevant.
2 - The fact that it was tied to the lowest pay rather than median pay.
3 - The fact that the ratio was so low.

From what I've heard a couple of other European countries are working on similar initiatives (including Spain that the article mentioned), but they're going to be tied to median income and the ratios they're looking at are 20 to 1. It would be interesting to see if it flies in Spain.

I think it's important for our societies not to let the gap between the rich and the poor get out of hand because it ultimately leads to social unrest and collapse like it did in Iran in 79 or Tunisia or Egypt in 2010, but whether this was/is the right mechanism for it is very debatable.

 

[Flint]

BH, capping someone's salary by some arbitrary rule is in the same vein as setting a minimum wage but at the two ends of the spectrum. You can't be for one and against the other.

 

[Behrooz_C]

I just don't understand how it can be implemented. How can regulation ensure that no one gets paid for example less than 10x his/her employer? It sounds like another regulation that will be ignored and people will find ways to get around.
Such a law will have to be applied to all sectors, not just some big companies. How will you ensure that a famous pop star or footballer doesn't earn more than 10x his cleaner, for example.

It's a non-starter, but the question is whether the ordinary person will think with their logic and brains or emotively and what appears to be right regardless of its consequences.

 

[Bi-honar]

BH, capping someone's salary by some arbitrary rule is in the same vein as setting a minimum wage but at the two ends of the spectrum. You can't be for one and against the other.

I'm not necessarily against capping salaries or mechanisms that would close the income/wealth gap (such as the one the French implemented, not so successfully! ), but I just don't think this is necessarily the right way to go about it. As Behrooz pointed out it would have been really difficult to monitor this one, but more importantly this would have made it very difficult for companies to hire skilled high-end workers. If you have a receptionist in the company making 20,000 Euros a year for example, can you imagine how difficult it would have been to hire a CEO for 240000 Euros a year in super-expensive Zurich and Geneva out of all the places in the world?!

 

[Flint]

I'm not necessarily against capping salaries or mechanisms that would close the income/wealth gap (such as the one the French implemented, not so successfully! ), but I just don't think this is necessarily the right way to go about it. As Behrooz pointed out it would have been really difficult to monitor this one, but more importantly this would have made it very difficult for companies to hire skilled high-end workers. If you have a receptionist in the company making 20,000 Euros a year for example, can you imagine how difficult it would have been to hire a CEO for 240000 Euros a year in super-expensive Zurich and Geneva out of all the places in the world?!

We should debate the merits of an idea not its implementation. It is like Obamacare. Sure, they will somehow fix the web site and the rest but the whole idea stinks. The same argument that you make regarding the secretary could be applied to minimum wage. You raise it and at some point you can't afford to hire them. Remember, you can force a minimum wage all you want but you can't force someone to hire people. There is no better remedy to address the wage gap than someone learning new skills and go out and make more. It is supply and demand. Everyone who has a pulse can flip a burger. You want more, go learn how to fix cars. Someone's worth is only decided by how much others are willing to pay for him, not some arbitrary law.

 

[Bi-honar]

We should debate the merits of an idea not its implementation. It is like Obamacare. Sure, they will somehow fix the web site and the rest but the whole idea stinks. The same argument that you make regarding the secretary could be applied to minimum wage. You raise it and at some point you can't afford to hire them. Remember, you can force a minimum wage all you want but you can't force someone to hire people. There is no better remedy to address the wage gap than someone learning new skills and go out and make more. It is supply and demand. Everyone who has a pulse can flip a burger. You want more, go learn how to fix cars. Someone's worth is only decided by how much others are willing to pay for him, not some arbitrary law.

Of course there is a lot of merit in what you're saying and I agree with it to some degree, but in the real world we can not oversimplify things to that point. Someone should be able to work those jobs and still put themselves through university or vocational schools as you're suggesting, otherwise that whole equation would fall apart. If the minimum wage does not cover absolute minimum living expenses then people can not get the additional training you're talking about. Don't forget, not everyone who's flipping burgers or watering is doing it as a career, but many do it to put themselves through college or university or pay for the vocational training you're talking about. Also, the effects of that low minimum wage will trickle through to the rest of society - Iran is a perfect example of this where an engineer is making $500 a month and barely able to pay for minimum necessities, despite being highly trained.

Ultimately, raising the minimum wage would only increase the cost of products for those companies that are dependant on low-wage workers and they just pass it on to their customers - an issue of supply and demand as you correctly pointed out. A big part of the US success in the 20th century goes back to Ford's philosophy that your workers should be paid well enough to be able to afford the products they manufacture. Fast forward to today, where Walmart's employees can't even afford to pay the food they sell and they're actually doing a food drive for them! I honestly think that's ridiculous - maybe some people aren't as bright as the rest of us or maybe they don't have the same drive as the rest of us, it doesn't mean they should be suffering to the point of hand-outs in a civilized democracy.

 

[Flint]

BH jaan, the down time broke up this debate but let me reply.

If the minimum wage does not cover absolute minimum living expenses then people can not get the additional training you're talking about. Don't forget, not everyone who's flipping burgers or watering is doing it as a career, but many do it to put themselves through college or university or pay for the vocational training you're talking about.

The minimum wage is by definition for entry level jobs. In other words, if you have two arm, two hands and can breath you get the job. A minimum wage job is not intended to put you through a 4-year college or pay for mortgage. The mistake people make is to think of a minimum wage job as a permanent state. It is not. It is only a bridge to better and bigger things. Besides, around here and most other places, the prevailing minimum wage is substantially higher than the legal minimum, proving once again that the best protector of individual rights is the market place itself. As for the good old whipping boy Walmart, they are paying ABOVE minimum wage to their entry level hires, so I am not sure what your beef is.

 

[Chinaski]

If those disgusting and humiliating donation boxes are the result of being payed above the minimum wage, then the minimum wage must be a joke and should be raised. Simple. What some of you guys demand and promote, is darwinism and according to Darwin the strong win and survive and the weak lose and die. This is how its done in the world of animals and unfortunatley the so called humans baa tamaame oon zargh o bargh o baado bood is not any different. Yani shomaa haa fekre ejtemaaitoon dar hadde heyvoone? Yani vaaghean enghadr moshgel daarid ke daste kessi ro ke naatavaane ro begirid o bekeshidesh baalaa? Yani az mamlekatetoon dar raftid raftid oonvare donyaa ke beshid in mojoode birahmi ke hastid? Yani tamaame fekr o zekretoon shode lah lah zadan donbaale pool o reghaabat o too sare ham zadan vaase bishtaresh?

 

[Flint]

Walmart is not in the charity business. Name one start up that had as its main goal to create jobs. Creating jobs is simply a by product of successful economic activity. Too many people think corporations are there to provide jobs and pay taxes and provide healthcare and food for people. Not so. Your other rants aren't worth answering.

 

[Chinaski]

Baba enghadr mozakhraf nagoo Walmarto alam kardi. Walmart is not the root of the problem, Walmart shaakho bargaashe. The root of the problem is the way of thinking of people like you who talk about other people who may not be as fortunate or successful as if they are some kind of "jens o kaalaa". This cold blooded attitude towards other people and their problems. As your own friend said above, there are people who are not as smart or do not have the same drive but you cant be so ignorant towards those people and their hardship. Kholaase our own Saadi war right about his story of bani aadam. He also was right by saying if you think like you think here, then simply "nashaayad ke naamat nahand aadami"

 

[Behrooz_C]

Actually no. Most of us have left our country so that the state does not tell us how to live, what to eat, and how to look after ourselves in this and the next world. Most of us have left our country because we hate having morality imposed on us. In Iran it's the akhoonds telling us what is good for us, and it seems that in some parts of the West it is the socialists who think they know what is best for everybody. You know, the dirty scumbag bastards who caused the death and destruction of millions of lives with their ideology. Starting from that illiterate koon goshaad sperm of a monkey Karl Marx to the modern day European bureaucrats sitting in Brussels running the new EUdSSR, thinking they own the rest of us. They are already dictating to us how many hours we should work, whether we should use pounds or kilos, or how old we have to be to blow up balloons!!!!!

No one is saying that people should be allowed to be perished. The sick need treating, the elderly and the disabled need to be looked after etc etc. But to say that these things can only be done through the state and there is no other alternative is quite fucked up and is the result of years of brainwashing by the state. It's typical socialist brainwashing, like every other socialist system that has no respect for individual rights and always ends up in totalitarian dictatorships. Fuck the lot of them. Seriously, if there is one thing I despise on a par with akhounds, it is the leftist socialist Marxists with their corrupt and immoral ideology. The lot of them are brainwashed illiterates who deserve our pity and scorn.

By the way, agar mikhay daste kesi ro bekeshi o biarish bala, then do it. It's your individual responsibility to help others, not through the state but through your own initiative. When you happily relinquish part of your money to the state (at the threat of a cage, by the way) to do that for you, then you are at best a cop out. It's disgusting mentality that you think you can put your feet up and drink your wine, but as long as you pay tax for someone else to look after the needy then all is ok. As long as you don't see the unsightly figure of homeless people in your town, everything is fine hey?!

I call it "the socialist disease". you take away the individual from the individual and the whole society becomes an aggregate of orphaned and abandoned individuals who are just numbers now. You don't allow a healthy ego to function - so they become easier to control !!!


BINGO !!!!

 

[Behrooz_C]

Flint/Bihonar,

I'd like to see the day when people self limited because in a world of finite resources no one needs to earn hugely more than the lowest paid.

A naïve pipe dream I guess. If the left wing celebs, like Michael Moore and Jimmy Carr clings to massive wealth then there's no hope others would voluntarily downsize themselves.

People should be more angry with those on the left who amass huge wealth and yet talk about inequality and spout nonsense about fairness and social justice. People should be more angry at their hypocrisy than anyone else. If they don't turn fine words into action who will? Here in the UK we have Tony Benn, a hardcore leftist socialist politician who amassed quite a reputation in the 70s and 80s for his loudmouthed socialist anti-capitalist ideology. Gues how he lives today. He has 3 houses in the most exclusive parts of London worth millions of £££s. He STILL goes on TV and radio to cry about social injustice in this country and demands "fair pay", but I think he has turned down the volume on wealth redistribution recently as it's not in his interests any more I wonder if he pays his cleaner more than 10X his own income!!! I bet my mortgage that he doesn't....

See, I have yet to meet one socialist supporter or activist, who does not behave like a capitalist to line his/her own pocket when the opportunity arises. NOT ONE. Take it from their keaders like Che Guevara and Castro to the little guy on the streets. Scratch the surface and they are all just as bad as those who they accuse.

 

[Chinaski]

Actually no. Most of us have left our country so that the state does not tell us how to live, what to eat, and how to look after ourselves in this and the next world. Most of us have left our country because we hate having morality imposed on us. In Iran it's the akhoonds telling us what is good for us, and it seems that in some parts of the West it is the socialists who think they know what is best for everybody. You know, the dirty scumbag bastards who caused the death and destruction of millions of lives with their ideology. Starting from that illiterate koon goshaad sperm of a monkey Karl Marx to the modern day European bureaucrats sitting in Brussels running the new EUdSSR, thinking they own the rest of us. They are already dictating to us how many hours we should work, whether we should use pounds or kilos, or how old we have to be to blow up balloons!!!!!

No one is saying that people should be allowed to be perished. The sick need treating, the elderly and the disabled need to be looked after etc etc. But to say that these things can only be done through the state and there is no other alternative is quite fucked up and is the result of years of brainwashing by the state. It's typical socialist brainwashing, like every other socialist system that has no respect for individual rights and always ends up in totalitarian dictatorships. Fuck the lot of them. Seriously, if there is one thing I despise on a par with akhounds, it is the leftist socialist Marxists with their corrupt and immoral ideology. The lot of them are brainwashed illiterates who deserve our pity and scorn.

By the way, agar mikhay daste kesi ro bekeshi o biarish bala, then do it. It's your individual responsibility to help others, not through the state but through your own initiative. When you happily relinquish part of your money to the state (at the threat of a cage, by the way) to do that for you, then you are at best a cop out. It's disgusting mentality that you think you can put your feet up and drink your wine, but as long as you pay tax for someone else to look after the needy then all is ok. As long as you don't see the unsightly figure of homeless people in your town, everything is fine hey?!

I call it "the socialist disease". you take away the individual from the individual and the whole society becomes an aggregate of orphaned and abandoned individuals who are just numbers now. You don't allow a healthy ego to function - so they become easier to control !!!


BINGO !!!!

In jafangiaate birabt chiye Behrooz, cheraa som mizani nesve shabi?

And now to that bullshit marked red: And what if i dont dont help the needy out of individuall responsibility? Hm? Then those needy people should die because in your fucked up and naiv view of world, people should either be helped by people or they should die because state is cathegorically looloo khor khore and shouldnt have the right to help out? I mean look at yourself and yourlikes, you wouldnt do a shit to help a needy person and then you suggest the destiny of those needy should be put in your and yourlikes hands? Ke chi? Taraf az goshnegi bemire yaa poole darmoone marizisho nadaare, jeloye dare darmoongaah joon bedeh?

Saadi was right on the money with nashaayast ke naamat nahand aadami.
Yes i want a state that needy guys who for whatever reason are not as fortunate have a RIGHT to be helped up and cared for because if their destiny would be put in other individualls hands, they will be screwed because most other individualls are greedy suckers who wouldnt do a shit to help them and i am seeing examples of those indifferent individualls on this site already. Yes, i pay taxes to make sure they get helped because i am earning enough money and can very well afford to help out. The weaker must have a protected right to be helped and supported. This actually should be one of the few differences between humans and animals.

 

[Behrooz_C]

Chinaski, now see, I respect that opinion because it's honest and straight without empty cliches. But here's the difference: I genuinely believe most people are caring and good enough to do what is right without state intervention. The problem I have with the latter is how easily it gets out of hand as indeed it has. They take your money and they spend it without accountability. State welfare does not ensure that everyone is looked after as we know too well. Much of the money we give to the state us used on things that you and I would never spend on and don't agree with, like fighting foreign wars.
Bottom line, you give the state money, you also hand them power, power over you.

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk

 

[Chinaski]

Akhe age harfet dorost bood ghabool mikardam, vali harfet birabte. Oomadi daastano be marx o engels o eudssr keshidi o hichi namoonde bood paaye lenin o stalin o trotzki ro ham bekeshi vasat and all that for no valid reason chon harfe man aslan be hezbo rang o parcham kaari nadaare. Ye bahse ensaaniye. Harki ke yekhoorde ensaaniat o bashar doosti hanooz too vojoodeshe be hamoon natijei mirese ke manam residam. Hich rabti be siaasat nadaare.

You are still talking some really unrelated and unproven stuff. In this world full of greedy wolves, you are trying to make me believe that people would automatically care for the needy loooool. People are eating themselves alife in this world and you are not noticing it? Even the stats are not supporting your thesis. I mean the countries with the highest living standards in the world like germany, luxemburg, sweden, norway, netherlands...they always had and still have a great health care program and a well working wellfare system. I mean there is no way you can question their superb living standard and they are going exactly the way i am talking about here. The state feels responsible for those who are in need of help. Your England and your beloved Mrs. Thatcher and all her big bold capitalistic slogans, couldnt make the brits to earn more money than those so called socialists in Germany, Sweden, Norway or Denmark! That proves, that a state can very well be helpful aslong as it is commited to countries interessts and to its people. Its all about distribution of wealth. Oon ke baamash bish barfesh bishtar, baashe harfi daresh nist but not to an extend ke ooni ke baame koochiki daare, dige aslan hich barfi roo boomesh nabaashe. All these things need to be taken care of and i mean it needs to be taken care of by laws and rights. You cant put the destiny of individualls in other individualls hands and pray for the best and what if those individualls decide not to help? No. There MUST be an instance to watch and take care of these things.

 

[Flint]

This is straight out of Democrat playbook. Accusing the other side of being heartless souls who want sick people to die. Mr. Chinaski, you are way too late to the game. This is what Rep. John Lewis said about the Contract with America provisions for welfare reform. The same reform that Clinton is taking credit even to this day.

"They're coming for our children. They're coming for the poor. They're coming for the sick, the elderly and the disabled."

 

[Chinaski]

They really seem to produce the most simple type of "tak sellooli" over there. Their heads get pumped with fart so that they believe every single statement, every single point of view must be related to their fucked up democrats or republicans lol.

 

[Behrooz_C]

One thing many people keep mistaking is that people are NOT equal. There is a well known factor in various social sciences called individual differences. For that very simple reason, you can not make people equal because they are inherently different. Of course, all of us, including governments, must treat everybody equally, but they can not make them equal. Any attempt at making everyone equal involves discrimination. There will always be the rich and the poor in any system, the debate is which one is most fair. To me it's absurd to take what someone has in order to redistribute it in the name some arbitrary and ill-defined concept of fairness.

As for greed, again this is another ill-defined term. What is greed, who is greedy? Is making two million £ a year greedy? Is having two cars greedy when some have none? Do you need 5 shirts in your wardrobe when some only have one and can't afford to buy more? How many shoes do you need? I mean this could be endless.

 

[Chinaski]

Doesnt cut it either. In all those countries i mentioned, no one is running around taking money from people to redistribute it and there ARE differences between people even in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway...after all they are capitalists aswell but they fortunately are still humans who recognize their responsibility towards the needy, children and generally those who need help to get up and as i already said, all those countries do still have a higher standard of living than england and some of them even higher than the USA. There is no contradiction in there. Differences are there, sure, but they dont have to be like day and night and the gap doesnt have to become wider and wider. Its a shame that in the US people have to work to not have to live in downtown and next to "niggas" and "hispanics". You need to rip your ass off to be able to live somewhere on the hills around the cities,...you basically have to pay for all those things that actually shouldnt be an issue at all. That makes my american relatives to slaves. They are hustleing and hustleing just for keep living in best places in San Diego and Carlsbad, they cant seem to afford to catch a break because that would make them fall flat on the spot. Such people get greedy, they become to robots whom goal in live will be lah lah zadan donbaale pool and some day they go down the gutter without even having read a single usefull book in their lifes. Really, i have noticed there are alot more people in europe reading books than in US. They simply dont care or dont have the time because of all that lah lah zadan. That makes people get primitive after a while.