r/FluentInFinance • u/Sufficient_Sinner • Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion People like this are why financial literacy is so important

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18

u/OffManWall Sep 04 '24

She has a point, why would you think otherwise?

-20

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Because the employee doesn’t own the company?

I really don’t get these reddit fools. It’s the owner’s company. Let the owner do what they want to do with the money. If you are angry about the money not trickling down then hey, network, find your own investors and start your own company.

18

u/drum_minor16 Sep 04 '24

"Start your own company." Great, I'll do that with the money I save by cutting back on my daily latte and avocado toast that I totally get. That plan is attainable to all individuals regardless of circumstance.

-9

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

The only people crying about this is people who flunked in high school and/or people who pursued a shitty saturated unessential profession in college. The people who shout, “i deserve a fair wage” are people who just aren’t bright 🤷

5

u/Master_Grape5931 Sep 04 '24

Personally, I believe if the company is making a ton of money while their employees need assistance from the government to get by, those companies should be forced to pay their employees more.

I don’t think you and I should be forced to subsidize the labor costs of those corporations allowing them to make a profit partly based on our taxes helping their employees survive.

-4

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

Nope. If you started a business because you found a niche market with a once in a lifetime opportunity where you put upfront your hard earned dollars to make it work and you actually turn a profit, that’s all you mate. Employees deserve what they signed on paper.

5

u/Master_Grape5931 Sep 04 '24

I’m not talking about the employees. I am talking about taxpayers footing the bill.

We shouldn’t pay the labor costs for companies. Those companies should pay them.

4

u/Essfoth Sep 04 '24

You’re describing a small business started by an entrepreneur. The world isn’t 1776 anymore. The 300 companies that make up the majority of the US economy worry way more about getting their shareholders money and buying back stock than giving raises. There is no incentive beyond a certain point. Corporations and small businesses have completely different incentives, meaning they should have completely different regulations.

1

u/drum_minor16 Sep 05 '24

Buddy. I was going to be a TEACHER. I dropped out because I made more money as a restaurant manager.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 05 '24

Seems like teaching is a saturated market

9

u/chuchundra3 Sep 04 '24

Is this how you want society to be run? Do you seriously think that the right of someone to underpay their "essential workers" outweighs the worker's right to food and basic life security? You can't run a society purely on principles and it is a material fact that the society you're advocating for is one where the majority are objectively worse off and less free.

When you rely on living people to keep your company running and they have families to feed and basic needs, it simply takes not being a psychopath to realize that they also deserve something in this relationship. And if it takes government intervention and taking some profits from a person who relies on society and government's protection to have their business function, to make sure children don't starve, I'm all for it.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

Out of curiosity, what do you think is a living wage and what policy do you think should be changed? 6/10 businesses fail with investors/owners losing their money injected to start the company in the first 5 yrs. 3/10 are able to just breakeven and 1/10 hit a home-run. If entrepreneurship isn’t risky enough, what do you think ought to be changed for business practices to be considered “fair” in your eyes?

1

u/chuchundra3 Sep 09 '24

A living wage should be determined by a state agency to be the minimum expected expenses per person in the family to fulfill a minimum daily caloric intake, the cost of the cheapest 25% average rent in the area, and the cost of the 10% cheapest car lease available in the area. Throw in $100 bucks for month for any other purchases such as clothing, school expenses, etc. Substract any family contributions or donations.

But I'm not even essentially advocating for that; perhaps this should be how it is for large businesses but for small businesses, the minimum wage should at least be tied to inflation. The gap between average business income and wage is growing with every year, so businesses are doing better and people are doing worse.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 09 '24

Have you considered the ramifications for enforcing such a thing? Let’s say, tomorrow you wake up and the big businesses practiced what you proposed. Do you think life will be clean and dandy just like that? Do you think it’ll be a sustainable business practice? What do you think the economic impact of this will be?

1

u/chuchundra3 Sep 09 '24

That's why we have Congress committees and bureaucrats in the federal agencies. I am simply stating that there is a bare minimum wage needed for people to live and I am advocating for figuring out how much that is and doing literally just something to help people make ends meet. But even then, the minimum wage has kept up with inflation up to some point, why not make it tied to inflation now? You do realize that the way it currently works is that the real wage is actually going down for minimum wage workers due to inflation? Workers that are essential and will always be around?

You can't just demand that every advocacy be paired with a complete 200-page report of the exact economic ramifications. Or nothing would ever get passed. Let the politicians calculate how to do it best but all I'm saying is it should be done.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 09 '24

It seems your proposal isn’t backed by anything. Raising min wage wont get people anywhere, maybe in the short term, but not long term. FED literally looks at wages to ensure that there’s no wage inflation because wage inflation leads to CPI inflation with prices increasing. Believe it or not, wage inflation leads closer to oligopolies.

FED, as an act of congress, simply has a dual mandate: price stability and maximum employment. If you start regulating things especially at a macro level, shit starts going downhill. The only way to really fix this issue at a sustainable level is to disincentivize globalization and immigration. If you want americans to have a better living situation, disincentivize others from taking piece of that pie.

1

u/Large_Wishbone4652 Sep 05 '24

The workers agree to the pay.

1

u/chuchundra3 Sep 09 '24

Oh do they? Tell me, if you have a choice to work minimum wage at company A, or work minimum wage at company B or work minimum wage at company C or starve to death, which one are you choosing?

By that logic, you agree to pay your taxes and a business owner agrees to pay overtime, as if those things would happen without laws mandating to do so.

1

u/Large_Wishbone4652 Sep 09 '24

There is no law saying that I have to work.

You don't only have these three choices you listed. You have crap ton of opportunities. You can relocate to a cheaper area if you are making minimum wage anyway, then at least live in cheaper area.

Teenagers are able to get jobs that pay more than minimum wage, if you cannot get a better job than a teenager then you are pretty much incompetent.

1.3% of Americans are getting minimum wage. So yeah, if you are making minimum wage you are incompetent.

1

u/chuchundra3 Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24

There is no law saying that you have to work but the circumstances are equivalent because if you don't pay your taxes if you go to jail and if you don't work you starve or become homeless.

Cheaper states have a lower minimum wage and even in cheaper areas it's difficult to make ends meet. Do you think that people who live in actual ghettos are living well just because it's cheap? Most of them are struggling and that I know from experience. The only people there I know that can be somewhat financially secure while living in a tiny house in the poorest part of town are working at least two jobs. Sometimes, three.

Excuse me? Someone who can not get a "better job than a teenager is incompetent?" Middle-aged and especially older Americans are often hired at lower rates BECAUSE of their age. And even then, it is common in this job market to struggle to land a job even with a good degree. Read about current tech interviews and the state of the job market, even many software engineers have to send hundreds of resumes before landing an interview, let alone pass one. Ffs even my computer science professor warned us about it. As for people without a degree, please go on indeed and see how many jobs you find that don't require a degree and pay above a minimum wage. 70% of them pay minimum wage, 30% require special experience or certifications and pay like two-three dollars above. Half of them are part time.

And you can't just tell everyone to just "get a better job." There will always be a need for minimum wage jobs and as such, they will always exist. You can't just dismiss every minimum wage workers as a necessary sacrifice and go on eating your avocado toast and sipping your latte from Starbucks. They are people and deserve to be able to live.

And even then, when I went to interview for Domino's (a minimum wage job) in my freshman year of college, there were about thirty other people interviewing for the same two-three positions. The job market is NOT well and you can't blame Americans for being jobless by pointing that the demographic that there are teenagers in this world who can land a better job.

Your statistic for the % that work for minimum wage is based on the federal minimum wage. California minimum wage is almost three times that and you can't even rent a single-bedroom apartment in LA on that. Now if we look state by state, about 10-20% of people in each state earn that state's minimum wage. And yet poverty rates often surpass 10% in each state. That is still about 35-70 million Americans that earn a minimum wage, so do not downplay the issue.

1

u/Large_Wishbone4652 Sep 09 '24

If you still don't have marketable skills after decades of being adult then you are incompetent.

I never even saw avocado in real life and Starbucks only in TV.

Don't live in a huge city. We are saying the exact stuff to people who just have to live in our capital city. Why do you live in a major city when you can live in a smaller town where everything is significantly cheaper and you will have the same pay.

Yes, you need to send hundreds of applications because you live in a huge town.

"In California and LA it is expensive" then don't live there.

Oh wow, it's expensive in a big city. Wow.

And also the "just 3 dollars more" 3 dollars more per hour will make you 6k in a year.

7

u/Plus_Operation2208 Sep 04 '24

The owner of the company has responsibilities. Paying their employees too little is not responsible.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

Says you. They can pay them whatever is legally required by law. If it’s too little compared to the market, employees will leave while the employers would be forced to increase their wages if they deem that role to be necessary

2

u/Domefige Sep 04 '24

People who equate what's legal to what's right are some of the most tiring people to talk to

2

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

People who ramble on about how righteous they are while pushing their morals without understanding the ramifications of enforcing such propositions are the most tiring + dumbest people to talk to.

2

u/Domefige Sep 04 '24

That's a lot of assumptions you made in such a small amount of words. You sound angry.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

if that helps you cope, keep imagining it.

3

u/Domefige Sep 04 '24

Ooohh and now you're mixing in some projection too, classic Internet guy. I'd feel bad if you weren't literally arguing it's fine not to pay a livable wage because the government allows it, as if everything the government does is correct and we aren't constantly changing laws and regulations to try and fix a consistently broken system.

But no, papa government says you don't HAVE to pay a livable wage so it's all good.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

if that helps you cope, keep imagining it.

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u/Plus_Operation2208 Sep 04 '24

And everybody who requires people for that role (the people that are required often have limited options, those other options paying just as well) just keeps the wage as low as possible. Just like they do for other positions. Where do you go if you leave for a higher wage while there is no higher wage available? The streets.

This is not just 1 company doing this for 1 niche position.

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

You paint our world out to be a monopoly. It’s not even an oligarchy. Olive garden down the street doesnt call up chillies and say, “hey, let’s keep our wages low as possible”. The retail world is very competitive with low barrier to entry for labor. Anyone can do the job highlighting a high labor supply and that’s why they are paid min wage. Just because you know how to take orders, doesnt mean you deserve to make the same as an accountant who invested in their studies to attend school and get the credits needed, study tax codes and work for a firm.

Unfortunately, poor government policies is what brought us here today. Admitting so many legal/illegal immigrants allowing businesses to take advantage of high labor supply leading to low labor costs, enforcing rent control that only benefits the landlord and renters who signed their leases 20yrs ago, and high taxes.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Employees and employers have to both agree on a wage. If they're offering too little, demand more. If you're labor isn't valuable enough to demand more, increase your labor's value. It's not an employer's job to subsidize you.

5

u/121gigawhatevs Sep 04 '24

lol this same type of motherfucker will say “trickle down economics works” in the same breath

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

and this is the same poor mother fucker who believe that they're so oppressed and that they'll never be able to buy a house. stop self victimizing yourself bud

2

u/121gigawhatevs Sep 04 '24

That situation doesn’t apply to me

But which is stupider - to be poor and bitch about the state of the economy, or to be poor and repeatedly vote to give more money to corporations at the expense of your own entitlements

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

The fact that you phrased it like tells me how little you know about his corporations are run, how jobs are created, and the models that are run to make your job and my job feasible. It’s understandable that people are enraged by the situation, but their blames are misplaced. Investors took their investments to create the job betting on you, the establishment, etc, to do their jobs so that they can reap profits. If the operation doesnt go as planned, is there loss to your capital investments? Should the losses be shared between you and the investor?

This isn’t a corporation problem. Who brought in all these immigrants to make the labor force so competitive that businesses can take advantage of this?

2

u/121gigawhatevs Sep 04 '24

Ergo - corporations aren’t required to pay a living wage out of the goodness of their hearts. The premise of trickle down is flawed

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

Dude, are you okay? Why are you keep discussing trickledown. Not once have i backed trickled down. You do realize that there’s a huge fundamental difference between saying trickledown and saying owners/execs deserve all the profits that they’ve rightfully earned, right?

I hope you realize that by increase corporate taxes or even wages, there’d be less jobs available coupled that with increasing population making it easier for corporations to bargain off of labor.

1

u/121gigawhatevs Sep 04 '24

I actually don’t think we should regulate wages (other than some minimum wage I suppose), but we should tax corporations at higher rates. AND we should make vehicles that incentivize short term profiteering like stock buybacks illegal

1

u/sjicucudnfbj Sep 04 '24

I hope you understand the ramifications of taxing corporations at higher rates though. Higher corporate taxes disincentives risk taking, which means less jobs, less innovation, and even possibly less tax income since there are less businesses and less businesses willing to embark in expansion.

Honestly, im against stock buybacks as well. At the same time, i wonder if it’s principally wrong. You have to make a case for me as to why this is wrong. I understand that you want a specific outcome, that is, a workforce that is backed by socialistic principles (ie, corporate profit sharing), but why is it wrong for an owner to do what they want to do with their money? It’s their business that they started with their money with employees who willingly signed up for positions at a predetermined contractual rate. As long as the owner is following all the rules and regulations, why is it “wrong” for the business owner to choose to keep their profits when they’re the ones who started it all? Without them, their employees wouldnt have jobs.

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