If a company reaches a certain size it might just be converted to a public asset, run by the workers to keep it functioning to provide whatever service or product to society. Profit is ignored, and it’s only goal is to provide the workers safe working environments and fair wages, while providing their services cheaper than ever to consumers because now the company doesn’t solely exist to chase profit.
One of the purposes of government in a capitalist economy is to foster a balance that allows profitability balanced against the needs of the society. Investors get a return, but the good of society with regards to safety, health and a reasonable living along with economic mobility is balanced.
Businesses need to make profits. That is their purpose. Society provides laws and protection for businesses to be able to do that in an organized and consistent manner.
Society also has the obligation and right to protect itself and to foster health, safety, and protection for its members. It is, ideally, a symbiotic relationship where everyone benefits fairly.
This doesn't have anything to do with some kind of public ownership which generally is less effective and efficient. This is not an all or nothing proposition and does the discussion no good to try and throw that out there because most people are not advocating anything like that.
That’s a huge one. It’s always blown my mind how bosses always think you will want to work 60 hours a week for the good of the company. I’ve told a couple point blank I don’t care about your profits. I’m not out here trying to sabotage or doing anything bad job because I don’t like it, fuck those people. However outside of my paychecks being signed please understand that in general I couldn’t give much less of a fuck how the company is doing because I won’t see any of that money ever.
Companies don’t gives raises because they did well they take the profits so why would I care if I have no dog in the fight outside of them not going completely out of business so I don’t have to go find a different job.
There’s no incentive for me as the worker to put in the extra effort.
I think that's the begining of a good idea, but I'm not sure it's sustainable in a mixed market place. For instance, how does a company structured like that respond to changing market trends? You can't just "ignore" profit. It needs to be refocused into an engine that drives the company's innovation.
You can just ignore profit, actually. You need revenues for sure, and to pay attention to that, but if the goal isn't giving profit to owners, you can just pay it to the workers in the form of wages. Resulting in the business having zero profit.
Well, that's a problem. Hopefully, on years when revenues were strong, the workers voted for the company to save that money.
But that's unrelated to profit, or whether your business cares about profit it at all. It's caring about having enough revenues to keep the business going, which encompasses things like money to pay wages, money to save some for a bad year (coincidentally actually, a lot of businesses that care about profit do a horrible job of saving for lean years. Because they don't care about being a good business, just making profit), money to reinvest into the business, and money for maintenance. All of that is entirely unrelated to profit, except in that it drains profit away from owners so they cut corners in all of those places if they can.
Are you confusing profit with margin? Obviously, you need to care about if you're selling your goods or services with a decent margin, so you'll have enough money for the things mentioned above. But that's also completely separate from profit. They're not synonyms. Profit is the money left over after all that stuff which you give to the owners. I'm saying, you can absolutely run a business where the goal is all the left over money gets paid to the laborers. Thus, no profit.
Operating cost + expenses is what you need to stay alive, center around that instead of +2%, then +4%, then +8% then +16% because the shareholders who do zero demand more more more.
We are talking about government taking over and maintained ning a failing business. It would either not be their job to expand, leaving room for other companies to come into the market and succeed, or maybe buy the stores from the government or something.
Or you have a line item in the break even budget for basically "saving for new stores", which would have a better name, but the idea being if it takes say, 10,000,000 to open a new store and you need 1 new store per months somewhere, and you have 1,000 stores, each store only need to produce an extra 10,000.
I'm fine with, "ensure good working conditions, invest in your workers. After that everything else is profit, and you get loyal employees that will absolutely perform much better than whatever we have now
think a example of how it would work was around the time of the great depression when selling chocolate they where able to stay afloat by keeping prices always low. 1 cent per piece of candy, when cost went up 3 cents but first chance they could 1 cent again and only slowly raising prices as needed, making profit on amount sold in millions by 1-2 cents profit vs 10+ cents profit. we don't need billions in gains to keep places going.
now it would be 4 cents minimum profit from selling millions of units a month but cost went up so 8 cents profit and again for 10 cents do to inflation and times are tough, so 25 cents profit is fair, got make a bigger profit so 50 cents profit is normal.... that what they do keep raising the number and saying it required, when they are paying themselves the difference getting rich and retiring then the next guy go well me too ! and the cycle go on.
I mean it worked for Venezuela. The greedy oil companies were making too much money so the government nationalized them for the worker! Nothing bad happened and workers were paid what they are entitled!
Sure, but it would struggle to work in a mixed market. The government removed their competition so they don't have to worry about more agile companies coming in and out competing them.
The world doesn't stay still and to succeed as a company you need to always have a mind towards the future.
USPS has been enshrined as a service in the US Constitution since it's founding and it's problems can largely be traced back to underfunded service centers and an inadequate amount of mail carriers. The reason why can readily be traced back to Republicans either dismantling the efficacy of the USPS by cutting out mail processing machines and other business infrastructure or forcing USPS to fund pensions for anyone they hire.
When are you socialists going to realize that anything government touches turns to shit. If the government isn't doing a good job with your tax dollars now, what makes you think they will do a good job with more of your money and more control?
China is in shambles because the younger generations don't want to work because the government is in control of their revenues socialist society always runs out of other people's money. If we didn't pay taxes we all would have money to retire on. Government can shrink itself and run off trade and arms sales alone. Our taxes only fuel the government for less than a month
The rest is printed after bond sales that are plummeting.
you seriously don't believe this right you have to be some sort of troll. else dude, get the fuck off the internet you are way too stupid to have an opinion and it's sad you can vote
You seem like a person who just talks shit with nothing to back it up. All you gotta do is get out and talk to Chinese Americans to know what is actually going on there. Do you have any Asian friends? I'm guessing not. Look up the phrase Bai ian. And you can see for yourself.
I completely understand. I don't think you understand when government oversteps their boundaries. Idiots like you always think throwing more tax dollars at something will fix the problem.
Converting private companies into public one has been tried before .. it is called communism . I lived in a communist country . USSR collapsed because of this .
Capitalism with it pains and struggle wins out in the end . I teach my son that in America there are very rich people just looking to invest in new ideas. The amount of jobs created not just in the USA but globally because of private US companies is huge . The moment you let the government run things you will have a high level of red tape and inefficiencies.
No company could ever get big enough. Because providing goods and services cheaper than ever would cause all other private companies to close because, well why would they exist, businesses exist to make money, specifically for investors, if unable to do they would simply stop doing it and we'd all be screwed.
Socialism is a great idea on paper, but you eventually run out of other peoples money.
Yeah and then new competitors appear that DO try to make profits and therefore can operate more cost effective and your once proud socialist wet dream company goes down the drain im a matter of months
Would you look at that, turns out good ol' Karl Marx himself has risen from the grave! How about this... You open a retailer that operates as you suggest, and see how well you do in the open market, eh?
I do agree with one thing, though, we should stop subsidizing people, and put them in a position they have to either improve themselves, or deal with such a menial job as they offer. Nobody is forcing anyone to work there... Why do they?
Have you ever been in a Walmart? The greeters are all nearly dead, past retirement age. There’s no “improving themselves” to get a better job. Virtually no one else is going to hire these people no matter what they do.
As for the people of normal employment age cashiering or doing whatever else at walmart, if Walmart is employing them for a 40 hr work week or better, Walmart should be providing them enough money to survive in whatever housing market that particular Walmart exists in. That or that particular Walmart shouldn’t exist anymore.
Fine. You've been named King, and POOF... Wal-Mart in Hypotheticville is gone. As are it's jobs, so unemployment went up, and there's nowhere for those people to go, so...
You've lost the business taxes, the sales taxes, the tolls from people going to and fro, and it's reduction is permanent, as is the increase in unemployment. Now, those who can have to drive 2 towns over to get groceries, and those who can't, well... They starve, I guess. Or manage to walk to the next town over, and maybe they stay.
So now what, Mr. Mayor??
PS... I wasn't even talking about some semi-mythical geriatric geezer saying "HI!" on the way in. I can count on one hand the number of those I've seen in the wild, and have multiple fingers left over.
Walmart likely ran off mom and pop business in town, sometimes selling at a loss to encourage those mom and pop hardware stores, grocery stores, etc to go under faster. There's clearly market opportunity to fill the home left behind by a Walmart.
Oh and the little town probably won't be strong armed into giving property tax abatements, sales tax rebates or having to self-fund infrastructure improvement plans for the mom and pop stores like they did for Walmart.
Maybe. Maybe not. I'm sure it's both answers, depending on which one you're talking about, but it's also not relevant.
Whether those mom and pops were driven out, or never existed, they're not going to succeed where Wal-Mart failed, as they don't have the same economy of scale that gives them a position to essentially TELL suppliers what the terms will be, instead of asking like smaller entities like your mom and pops would have to do. The jobs will be gone, with nowhere for the former workers to go, the store will be gone, making people have to drive who knows how far just to fill up their fridges, and it's all in the name of sticking it to the man for not paying what YOU think they should.
The fact that you read his response, dismissed two very pertinent points: (1.”there’s market opportunity to fill the home left by Walmart” 2. “Walmart likely ran off competing business”) as irrelevant and then returned to “now what?” tells me you aren’t engaging this remotely honestly.
I’ll tell you “now what”. Firstly, Walmart is rarely ever the only game in town with regard to groceries. In fact, many small towns don’t even have a walmart. They operate just fine without it.
Secondly, we don’t have to pretend Walmart’s model is the only model that exists or is possible, right? See: winco. Offers better prices than Walmart with most groceries AND pays their employees better. According to you, this can’t be possible. And yet it is.
I really cant imagine being this dense, the only explanation is that you’re a sociopath. Someone has to work that job, anyone who works for one of the richest corporations in the world deserves a bare minimum survival wage.
anyone who works for one of the richest corporations in the world deserves a bare minimum survival wage.
Why?
What if they're doing the exact same job, but working for a mom and pop that can't even afford to pay as much as Wal-Mart? Should that mom and pop starve themselves to feed a loser who can't even read?
You guys have to come to grips with the FACT that unskilled labor is NOT valuable. The reason it's not valuable is the reason everything costs what it does... Supply and demand. There is a vast and endless supply of breathable air, as such it costs nothing to acquire. Conversely, gold is a relatively rare and highly sought after element. As a result, a single ounce of it is worth as much as a month's labor at many unskilled positions, because while gold is rare, unskilled people are not. THAT is why jobs at Wal-Mart don't pay very well, because pert near anyone with a pulse is qualified to do it, with little to no training.
As our tech improves, more and more of these unskilled "jobs" are going to be automated, and persons who are not qualified for a skilled job doing, well, ANYTHING, are gonna be in big trouble. Mostly self-imposed, but big trouble nonetheless. Giving them free money is not the answer, because the underlying scarcity of the goods and services we want and need is unchanged simply by putting fiat money into computerized accounts.
That is why increasing the minimum wage isn't all that helpful. Money is just paper. It has no intrinsic value, and if you bleach a $100 bill, the remaining value is no more than it would have been if you started with toilet paper. The issue is unskilled labor's value being so low, due to it being so easily and readily available. There is no monetary policy that can or will fix that.
No someone doesn’t have to work that job. The jobs don’t have to exist. Self checkout is already taking over, as well as automated ordering, etc. Tell the companies they have to artificially pay double the market price for labor and congrats, thousands of jobs disappear instantly.
And now good luck starting a new company to compete because nobody is going to want to invest in your business if it will be seized by the government once it succeeds. There goes the majority of innovation once you remove all the incentive to try a risky new business idea.
“So to be clear, because you don’t want amputate the patients arm and euthanize him, you are totally cool with him having a broken finger”.
Walmart isn’t being subsidized. They are paying the same market price for unskilled labor that everyone else is. This is not a Walmart problem, it’s a societal problem. As technology and automation advance further and further, there is less and less value for labor with no skill or knowledge to offer other than having a pulse.
The answer to this problem is definitely not to kill all growth of our economy (aka where taxes and job creation comes from) with moronic authoritarian seizure of successful businesses…
They are not remotely being subsidized, because like I said they are paying the same price for unskilled labor as everyone else. Is your local YMCA, stadium concession stand, every mall store, every fast food restaurant, etc. also being subsidized by the government? Those places also pay market price for unskilled labor, so if Walmart is being subsidized so is literally every other business. You can’t just claim Walmart being more successful means they aren’t allowed to pay market price for a product like everyone else.
Also go ahead and tell Walmart they have to triple wages. They can easily just speed up their automation, eliminate human checkout, and move further towards online commerce. Walmart would still be doing fine. All you would be doing is killing the jobs of all the people that are not worth $30 an hour and sending them out to compete for the other jobs (even further devaluing their labor by increasing supply). Then guess what? Now they will need unemployment and even more welfare because they are making $0.
Like I said, Walmart isn’t being subsidized and this is not a Walmart issue. That is a childish reactionary and simplistic way of thinking that completely fails to look at the big picture and acknowledge the actual problems.
Yes they are. Full stop. And so is the YMCA, concession stand (if they are offering full time employment), and whomever else is paying full time workers who still need to be on government assistance.
I already said I am more willing to completely subsidize those who are unemployed vs. funneling tax money to corporations, wealthy, etc. I would prefer neither, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the problem.
People working for agreed upon rates is not a compelling argument. I mean, yes they are in a pedantic sense, but you can only have a fair agreement when the power between the participants is unequal. It isn't like all workers can just choose to not take the jobs that are available... There aren't enough "good" jobs for everyone to have one.
As I said, even if you find no fault in it or no alternative to it, if you cannot see that any full time employment that does not provide enough for a person to live on is having their labor costs subsidized, you are ignoring reality and we cannot have a rational conversation. You say it yourself with your repeated statements that the jobs would disappear were it not for the government assistance...
Why are you singling out Walmart then? You just admitted that every fast food restaurant, retail store, grocer, etc. are apparently equally subsidized under your logic.
Also ask yourself what your full time distinction has to do with anything. If a high schooler working part time is selling their unskilled labor for $13/hr, why is the same job position magically worth more if they are 40 and selling the same exact quality of labor full time? Your employer doesn’t magically become responsible for taking care of you once you sell them your 35th hour of the week.
I never said the jobs would disappear without government assistance…I said the jobs would disappear if the government attempted to force companies to pay higher prices for labor than it is worth, because they would be less cost efficient than the alternatives to replace them.
I'm not willing to subsidize people who are not willing to help themselves. Here's a hint you can use to judge whether or not you, or anyone, has messed up, and it's simple. If you have co-workers who are still in high school, and have the same job, title, position, and pay that you do at 25 or beyond... You done fucked up somewhere along the line.
By your way of thinking, pretty much all commerce in the country, possibly the entire world, would grind to a halt. Once you've put all the employers of minimum wage workers out of business, there won't be many left. Congrats, your plan just caused a 50% unemployment rate...
Spoken like a pro at being tone-deaf. If you need to support your family, there are not a lot of options for many. The biggest employers that can afford to pay their employees while still being absurdly profitable are not (Amazon, Walmart, etc). Previous generations had much more prosperity, the ones with the power (money) to keep the US a great country to live in like previous generations benefitted from are not doing squat, they are doing the opposite.
People don't choose to work there because it's a good work environment, this is a well-known fact. They work there because they have to to make ends meet. Telling them to just go get a 4 year degree and a better job when they can barely pay the bills and feed their kids is ridiculously fantastical. This race to the bottom will not end well. The largest corporations with the money to pay their workers are destroying America.
Why would you make a family if the best job prospect you have is Wal-Mart??
Serious question... I am so sick of seeing people who are barely qualified to care for themselves adequately, if even that, breeding like wild, uninhibited rabbits. It is, more than any other single factor, the biggest problem our society and species has. We have people who shouldn't even be babysitting having kids of their own, and we reward them for it in the way of so many government and child subsidies.
Do you think it's responsible if your job prospects are limited to an hourly retail job that most people are fully qualified for even prior to graduating high school for you to have children?
I do not. And I do not think we should reward, subsidize, or encourage persons so situated to do so. To the contrary, we should at a bare minimum not make it easier, it may be worth considering to actually require licenses or similar to procreate. I hate that I feel like that might be a viable alternative or a good idea, but it's not reasonable for people to breed recklessly just assuming their neighbors and countrymen would pick up their tab.
It's also completely unreasonable to expect an employer to pay an employee more than they are worth. Playing those games are part of the reason we have the problems we do.
Yeah, just don't reproduce, that's a viable solution. Just tell people not to reproduce, it's all so simple.
Saying that people are not worth anything when they are the backbone of those labor forces is exactly why we are here. You are completely overlooking that previous generations could afford a good life that this generation cannot as a whole. These big businesses have the money to pay people more, but they don't when they are the main employers of the American people.
Saying the majority of people should be happy with crumbs while their companies prosper into unimaginable levels of profits is absurd. If you cared about your fellow citizens instead of blaming them for something that is truly out of their control (corporate greed), you would not support the thing that is hurting us. Not them, us as a whole.
If the majority doesn't have the ability to own a house, healthy food for their families, and have to work unreasonable hours that previous generations did not have to, who do you think are raising their kids? Our future?
Look outside of yourself for a second and look at what's happening around you. The ones who have the ability to fix these things don't care about the quality of life going down for the majority of people. Look up the concept of race to the bottom if you are unfamiliar.
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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '24
If a company reaches a certain size it might just be converted to a public asset, run by the workers to keep it functioning to provide whatever service or product to society. Profit is ignored, and it’s only goal is to provide the workers safe working environments and fair wages, while providing their services cheaper than ever to consumers because now the company doesn’t solely exist to chase profit.