Study: Productivity up.. Workers pay, hirings down.

[Terralthra]

Actually, it has everything to do with communism. This sort of behavior is exactly what Marx was talking about when he said that capitalist corporations made a profit by stealing the wages of labor.

[Alphawolf55]

Then expect the shareholders and CEOs to donate their money fairly or give it to the Government so we can create better social services for the recently fired, but when has hiring unneeded workers ever been considered part of that obligation?

Again I'm not arguing the idea that corporations should give their workers fair pay and that the people who benefit from these corporations owe something to their community, I just don't see why it's their obligation to give jobs that aren't needed, obligation to pay taxes so that those without jobs can have homes and eat. Yes, obligation to provide jobs themselves? No.

[Serafina]

Actually, it has everything to do with communism. This sort of behavior is exactly what Marx was talking about when he said that capitalist corporations made a profit by stealing the wages of labor.

No it hasn't.
Because it is specifically talking how property includes responsibility, while communism abolishes property (at least capital property, which is what we are talking about here).
Taking some responsibility for what you own is hardly a communist concept.

Then expect the shareholders and CEOs to donate their money fairly or give it to the Government so we can create better social services for the recently fired, but when has hiring unneeded workers ever been considered part of that obligation?

Oh, stop strawmaning.
If you have the capability to employ a large number of people, you have to use that capability responsibly.
As you have to treat your workers with responsibility.

And in this case, they are using money given to them with the express intent of creating jobs to destroy jobs. This violates that responsibility in every way possible.

[Kanastrous]

I suspect that the number of business owners and managers who would define their primary responsibility as maximizing profit and shareholder return is much larger than the number of owners and managers who would define their primary responsibility as employing people.

I agree that workers should be treated responsibly - although I prefer organized labor to government for the purpose - but the idea that the purpose of a business from its managers' perspective is anything but strengthening the business seems outlandish.

The $$$ may have been given to them with the intent of using it to hire more workers - but at the time was hiring more workers actually in the businesses' best interest? If not, is it rational to expect that businesses will deliberately operate against their own interest?

[ShadowDragon8685]

I suspect that the number of business owners and managers who would define their primary responsibility as maximizing profit and shareholder return is much larger than the number of owners and managers who would define their primary responsibility as employing people.

I agree that workers should be treated responsibly - although I prefer organized labor to government for the purpose - but the idea that the purpose of a business from its managers' perspective is anything but strengthening the business seems outlandish.

The $$$ may have been given to them with the intent of using it to hire more workers - but at the time was hiring more workers actually in the businesses' best interest? If not, is it rational to expect that businesses will deliberately operate against their own interest?

If you give someone a grant with the understanding that he's going to do something responsible with it - say, installing solar panels - and you come back later to find that he decided that that grant money would better serve him sitting in a bank accumulating interest, you're going to be furious. If you're the government, in fact, you're not going to give a good goddamn to his well-reasoned argument that it does him the most good sitting in a bank accumulating interest, you're going to give a good goddamn about the fact that you gave it to him to do Y, and instead he's gone and done R!

This is shortly followed by you forcibly confiscating the money from him, and usually by throwing his ass in prison for fraud.

[SirNitram]

Unfortunately, Ford Motor Co. vs. Dodge was taught to say the legal requirement of a company to it's shareholders is always maximizing profits, to the point I beleive there's no chance to return to the actual ruling.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Employing people is a means to an end for a business. That end is making money.

Ethically, it should also be a means to an end. Boosting employment (or limiting unemployment) has no inherent ethical value. It is just a means to the end of helping people live better lives. If the efforts to boost employment aren't actually achieving the ultimate goal - enriching people's lives - you should take another approach!


This is just a peeve of mine. Everyone talks about employment as if it is a desirable goal in and of itself. It isn't. At least business realizes that.

The alternative, Destructionator, is to give them that money without them doing anything to get it.

This is anathema to the American culture, for many reasons; chiefly among them is that those with money would quite happily have the poor starve and/or die in riots (as long as it's not happening where they have to bear witness to it or get their hands dirty,) than give them one red cent. "I have mine, fuck the poor." Nobody wants to give anyone anything they didn't "earn," but those who control the means to earning have no particular desire to let others earn when they could keep it to themselves.

[J]

So, in short, could one say that corporate America is using this as an opportunity to increase their bottom line, extract more from their employees for less, and squeeze out competing small businesses? It's like the 1800s all over again, complete with expanding rich-poor gaps, mass destitution, and robber-barons.

One could indeed. What we have now is a large consolidation and asset stripping operation being carried out by corporate America. Most people think the current recession is a milder version of the Great Depression; there are ongoing events which match those of the 1930's, however, I think some aspects are a lot closer to the Long Depression of 1873 and the depression of 1893, particularly the Ponzi finance, concentration of capital, asset stripping of the middle & lower classes, and failed government attempts to inflate our way out of a depression.

[Broomstick]

So, in short, could one say that corporate America is using this as an opportunity to increase their bottom line, extract more from their employees for less, and squeeze out competing small businesses? It's like the 1800s all over again, complete with expanding rich-poor gaps, mass destitution, and robber-barons.

That IS what the American right-wing politics wanted - a return to the 1800's. Looks like they're getting it.

The stupidity are all the republitards I know who STILL support this notion even as they lose their jobs, their savings (if any), their homes, their retirement, their health care...

[ShadowOfMadness]

So, in short, could one say that corporate America is using this as an opportunity to increase their bottom line, extract more from their employees for less, and squeeze out competing small businesses? It's like the 1800s all over again, complete with expanding rich-poor gaps, mass destitution, and robber-barons.

That IS what the American right-wing politics wanted - a return to the 1800's. Looks like they're getting it.

The stupidity are all the republitards I know who STILL support this notion even as they lose their jobs, their savings (if any), their homes, their retirement, their health care...

The religious ones do it because the Democrats are socially liberal and their view of inward looking faith is more important to them than most things. The rest just buy into the Randian world-view to some degree.

But honestly....I suspect most companies are leveraged too badly to seriously consider more than minimalist hiring.

[Broomstick]

The problem is that there is now a rapidly growing population in the US who are not only out of work, but not likely to find work any time in the near future. Sooner or later, they'll figure this out.

There is very little social safety net in the US. If you have no income you are fucking screwed. My spouse and I can only qualify for food stamps. That's it. There is NO help for rent, for fuel, or even purchasing soap with which to clean our bodies. If I do not earn sufficient money to pay the rent we are fucked. My spouse is disabled, but it's three years and counting since he had to hire a lawyer to get disability benefits and that's still in appeals and legal limbo.

What's going to happen when the unemployment runs out and folks find out that while they might be able to get help to buy food they have no pot to cook it in nor fire to provide heat?

Yes, it is understandable that companies already against the ropes are reluctant to hire. Let me point out another understandable fact: hungry, homeless people are dangerous. At a certain point self-interest should make it plain that either

1) more jobs must be found or, if necessary, made or

2) at some point those with nothing left to lose will attempt to take what they need to survive by force.

Meanwhile - I am doing my damnedest to avoid being one of the most desperate.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Among the alternative solutions, that have been enacted, are:

extending unemployment payments
extending medicaid
extending food stamps
extending rental assistance

If productivity is automated, these could continue to be extended, thus meaning unemployment needn't actually hurt anyone.

Unemployment doesn't help those who aren't eligible for it; at the very least it does nothing for those who never were employed. I'm not entirely sure about the unemployment eligibility for those who had only part-time employment (I ought to check, actually; can someone point me towards where I can learn more on that front?)
Medicaid only covers old people and disabled people, AFAIK, and is chronically underfunded. If Old Bob the octogenarian has worked all his life and breaks his arm, Medicaid will help. If my 24 (near-as-makes-no-difference to 25) year old self who's only managed to land one part-time job as a census worker break my arm, tough shit.
Food Stamps, as previously mentioned, only buy you food. They don't buy you soap, or toilet paper, or anything like that. (Though, oddly, they can buy you lobster. Go figure.)
I admit to utter cluelessness about rental assistance. Still, even if it is prevalent, it's just one slice of what needs to be a comprehensive pie. Instead we get cake. Cake which is, in fact, a lie.

[Patrick Degan]

The problem is that there is now a rapidly growing population in the US who are not only out of work, but not likely to find work any time in the near future. Sooner or later, they'll figure this out.

There is very little social safety net in the US. If you have no income you are fucking screwed. My spouse and I can only qualify for food stamps. That's it. There is NO help for rent, for fuel, or even purchasing soap with which to clean our bodies. If I do not earn sufficient money to pay the rent we are fucked. My spouse is disabled, but it's three years and counting since he had to hire a lawyer to get disability benefits and that's still in appeals and legal limbo.

What's going to happen when the unemployment runs out and folks find out that while they might be able to get help to buy food they have no pot to cook it in nor fire to provide heat?

Yes, it is understandable that companies already against the ropes are reluctant to hire. Let me point out another understandable fact: hungry, homeless people are dangerous. At a certain point self-interest should make it plain that either

1) more jobs must be found or, if necessary, made or

2) at some point those with nothing left to lose will attempt to take what they need to survive by force.

Unfortunately, the greedheads who largely control this country will look at 1) and 2) and decide that the solution to those problems is 3) more prisons and 4) more police. The ultimate logical end to those sort of policies usually, of course, is 5) revolution.

They don't see this, naturally.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

You'll note, Shadow, that Destructionator wants to EXPAND those programs, which sounds like a good idea to an uneducated slob like myself, though I'm sure an economist will be along shortly to explain why it would be a disaster.

Massive infrastructure upgrades have been suggested as a way for the government to create jobs, much like what was done during the great depression, but I don't think that would work today, at least not if stupid people are the same nationwide as they are in my area. To explain, the power lines in my area mostly went up in the fifties (I believe) and are in desparate need of upgrades, so Allegheny Energy had a plan to replace the high tension lines running through the southwestern part of the state. What happens? A "Stop the Towers" protest movement springs up against it. "Vital infrastructure upgrades? Not anywhere near my property!"

[K. A. Pital]

But if a company does not care about anything but money, it is simply immoral.

Capitalism as a theoretic framework is just an economic concept. It (and other one, too) has no morality; it only operates with concepts of economic efficiency. It's like saying the gun is immoral for firing the bullet. How? That's just it's modus operandi.

[Serafina]

But if a company does not care about anything but money, it is simply immoral.

Capitalism as a theoretic framework is just an economic concept. It (and other one, too) has no morality; it only operates with concepts of economic efficiency. It's like saying the gun is immoral for firing the bullet. How? That's just it's modus operandi.

Hm, i suppose "amoral'" was the word i was looking for.

Either way, it is still wrong when people operate solely on capitalistic principles - because those principles are amoral, and therefore the actions they take. But as long as you operate within a society, you have to consider the morals of that society - and morals are generally about what's best for society. And it's quite doubtful that these actions (taking money indented to get more people employed to employ less people) are good for society.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You'll note, Shadow, that Destructionator wants to EXPAND those programs, which sounds like a good idea to an uneducated slob like myself, though I'm sure an economist will be along shortly to explain why it would be a disaster.

No, they're definitely programs worthy of expansion. The problem is that that'll happen sometime around the time pigs take flight without the malevolant beneficence of some lunatic human attaching them to some contraption.

Massive infrastructure upgrades have been suggested as a way for the government to create jobs, much like what was done during the great depression, but I don't think that would work today, at least not if stupid people are the same nationwide as they are in my area. To explain, the power lines in my area mostly went up in the fifties (I believe) and are in desparate need of upgrades, so Allegheny Energy had a plan to replace the high tension lines running through the southwestern part of the state. What happens? A "Stop the Towers" protest movement springs up against it. "Vital infrastructure upgrades? Not anywhere near my property!"

Massive infrastructure upgrades might be a good idea. It might not work out so well, though; Americans of today are, by and large, large and deeply unsuited to and unused to physical labor. Even if they were desperate enough to take a job, say, improving the interstate highway system or laying down fiber-optic cables or erecting power lines, they might not be any good; and would probably be a liability of collapsing from overexertion with health problems very easily.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah. But the company is only acting within the rules of the system. It does not even break the easily-broken rules that exist in typical capitalist nations (I mean it does no illegal stuff).

Why should the company be blamed, when the entire system creates strong incentives to maximize the company's welfare and not that of the society? Say, one company starts hiring amidst a typical economic crisis like the one we have today. Another one does not. The second one wins in the competition, making the first choice a moral right, but a wrong in practical terms.

If you want the companies to hire, perhaps you should see if you can change the way they are run, i.e. change the rules. Replacing company execs with "more moral people" would do little good because they'd be subjected to the same rules of the game. Circumstances (a similar punishment-incentive-reward system) will turn them into the same people whom they replaced.

[Edward Yee]

Massive infrastructure upgrades might be a good idea. It might not work out so well, though; Americans of today are, by and large, large and deeply unsuited to and unused to physical labor. Even if they were desperate enough to take a job, say, improving the interstate highway system or laying down fiber-optic cables or erecting power lines, they might not be any good; and would probably be a liability of collapsing from overexertion with health problems very easily.

Or alternately lack the hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, or clarity of eyesight to do that kind of work, yet also lack the technical grounding (as opposed to job-specific trainable skills?) to perform less physically strenuous work on said projects.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Yeah. But the company is only acting within the rules of the system. It does not even break the easily-broken rules that exist in typical capitalist nations (I mean it does no illegal stuff).

Why should the company be blamed, when the entire system creates strong incentives to maximize the company's welfare and not that of the society? Say, one company starts hiring amidst a typical economic crisis like the one we have today. Another one does not. The second one wins in the competition, making the first choice a moral right, but a wrong in practical terms.

If you want the companies to hire, perhaps you should see if you can change the way they are run, i.e. change the rules. Replacing company execs with "more moral people" would do little good because they'd be subjected to the same rules of the game. Circumstances (a similar punishment-incentive-reward system) will turn them into the same people whom they replaced.

As a random example, the extremely restrictive rules on capital expenditure wrought by Hitler's Germany strongly encouraged internal investment, as opposed to profits to individuals. This isn't that hard to do, put higher taxes on corporate profits and incentives to reinvest (As opposed to tax incentives based on losses or allowing capital flight for example)

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Massive infrastructure upgrades might be a good idea. It might not work out so well, though; Americans of today are, by and large, large and deeply unsuited to and unused to physical labor. Even if they were desperate enough to take a job, say, improving the interstate highway system or laying down fiber-optic cables or erecting power lines, they might not be any good; and would probably be a liability of collapsing from overexertion with health problems very easily.

I think you're overestimating the difficulty of some of those jobs, and underestimating the American people, we're not quite that pathetic.

I think the problem with any large public works project would be the Tea Party protesting it into oblivion. I mean, the government? Doing something other than bombing brown people? Not only that, but building things? Things that will be used by everybody? Paid for with tax dollars? Why, that's a damn good idea COMMUNISM!!!11!

Heh, "Keep the government OUT of my crushing poverty"

[Ritterin Sophia]

Wouldn't it be ironic if this problem is not addressed and America turns into the United Socialist States of America?

[Edward Yee]

I think you're overestimating the difficulty of some of those jobs, and underestimating the American people, we're not quite that pathetic.

Here's hoping that it's not actually the other way around from what you're saying. =/ ("overestimating the American people" and "underestimating the difficulty of some of those jobs.") I'm firmly in the category I described, unfortunately.

[Broomstick]

Just a few minor corrections in the interest of accuracy - Shadow got the gist of it, but not the fine details.

Among the alternative solutions, that have been enacted, are:

extending unemployment payments
extending medicaid
extending food stamps
extending rental assistance

If productivity is automated, these could continue to be extended, thus meaning unemployment needn't actually hurt anyone.

Unemployment doesn't help those who aren't eligible for it; at the very least it does nothing for those who never were employed. I'm not entirely sure about the unemployment eligibility for those who had only part-time employment (I ought to check, actually; can someone point me towards where I can learn more on that front?)

Unemployment does not help those never employed at all, does not help the formerly self-employed, and only sometimes helps the part time,

(Shadow - do a search on "unemployment benefits" + "name of your state" and you should find your state agency dealing with that. Take your Census termination papers - but DO NOT refer to the end of your employment as a "termination" when job hunting! Outside of the Feds "termination" means "fired for being bad" - and go apply, even if you don't think you'll qualify. It can't hurt to ask. It will also get you into the system so your time will count and add up when you get more work. These days, the agency websites have instructions on what to do and where local offices are.)

Medicaid only covers old people and disabled people, AFAIK, and is chronically underfunded. If Old Bob the octogenarian has worked all his life and breaks his arm, Medicaid will help. If my 24 (near-as-makes-no-difference to 25) year old self who's only managed to land one part-time job as a census worker break my arm, tough shit.

MediCARE is the Federal program that covers the old and disabled. MedicAID is the state program covering poor people, often de facto just children and pregnant women. Some states do cover people without children but you must be poor to qualify. Being a state program, what you get depends on where you live so, again, find the government services website for more information.

I admit to utter cluelessness about rental assistance.

In the greater Chicago area the waiting list for rental assistance is 10 years long. Og knows where you're supposed to live while waiting. Yet another reason we have homeless people in this country.

Oh - and in the greater Chicago area Illinois landlords are taking the "Section 8" (housing assistance) agency to court for failing to pay on time. In Lake County, Indiana the court case is for failure to pay up at all. Apparently there is a funding problem.... like failure to appropriate the money to pay for these programs...

[Kanastrous]

I suspect that the number of business owners and managers who would define their primary responsibility as maximizing profit and shareholder return is much larger than the number of owners and managers who would define their primary responsibility as employing people.

I agree that workers should be treated responsibly - although I prefer organized labor to government for the purpose - but the idea that the purpose of a business from its managers' perspective is anything but strengthening the business seems outlandish.

The $$$ may have been given to them with the intent of using it to hire more workers - but at the time was hiring more workers actually in the businesses' best interest? If not, is it rational to expect that businesses will deliberately operate against their own interest?

If you give someone a grant with the understanding that he's going to do something responsible with it - say, installing solar panels - and you come back later to find that he decided that that grant money would better serve him sitting in a bank accumulating interest, you're going to be furious. If you're the government, in fact, you're not going to give a good goddamn to his well-reasoned argument that it does him the most good sitting in a bank accumulating interest, you're going to give a good goddamn about the fact that you gave it to him to do Y, and instead he's gone and done R!

This is shortly followed by you forcibly confiscating the money from him, and usually by throwing his ass in prison for fraud.

This works if you handed over the $$$ with a properly-constructed written instrument dictating precisely what the recipient may and may not do with it. Absent such a written agreement...what recourse does one have?

Should there have been strict, airtight-wording agreements to serve that purpose? Yes, of course. Were there? Not so far as I have been able to find out.