The top 1% and the one to twelve ratio...

shruikan2553

Akrasia wrote: »

Have they worked 12 times harder than the average person?

Wages aren't based on how hard you work. If there are a lot of people willing to do it for minimum wage then that is what will be offered

kiffer

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Ah, the 'footballers wages for soldiers' argument.

This is a good read:

http://supportersnotcustomers.com/2013/09/08/soldiers-should-get-footballers-wages/

You seem to be either constructing weird strawmen or just not doing great on the reading compression front...
No one is saying everyone should only get 30k, or at least I'm not.
By all means more effort and more time/experience should result in more pay. Just not an exponential pay increase.
What I said is that a member of AGS walking around the streets of Dublin is actually at risk of injury and a civil servant working in an office is not.
You are arguing with someone who is not here.

Bubbaclaus

Salary is based on supply/demand. Getting the government involved will just make the market inefficient.

KahBoom

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

If everybody earned the same amount of money, say everybody was given 30k regardless of the job they did, do you think people would bother doing a highly responsible job or would they stick with the easy job?

Pushing down the wage of the high earners will only 'squeeze the accordion' down the line and reduce wage increases to negligible amounts.

Come on now... there's no "study" or "evidence" required for this.

"If everybody earned the same amount of money" - think you're in the wrong topic, as nobody argued for this...

Dyr

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Working your best isn't the only thing you need to do. You need to work your best in the correct area. And getting into the correct area requires working your best at school. Chain reaction.

And thats how social mobility works in your cartoon?

Dave!

No. Begrudgery.

It's simple (or should be) – if I start a company, I'll pay myself whatever I want, and I'll offer a salary to whoever wants to work for me. If they agree to that salary, then great. If they don't, then they will take their skills somewhere else and work there instead.

It's a contract entered into voluntarily, so therefore the compensation the employee receives should meet their needs, or else they won't work there.

What someone else (e.g. the CEO) earns is none of their business. If they want to be a CEO and earn what they want, then they should start their own company, or convince some employer that you're worth that.

Alternating Current

Akrasia wrote: »

Have they worked 12 times harder than the average person?

Wages are determined by supply and demand, how hard you work isn't the determining factor.

The more value you provide, the more wages you generally earn.

KahBoom

If the CEO wants the great privilege of being able to own a company and have that benefit from limited liability - a privilege granted to him by the public and government, since you don't just 'create' a company from nothing, their structure/workings are laid down in law - then he can follow whatever other rules the public/government lay down, in exchange for that privilege (including a salary cap).

KahBoom

Alternating Current wrote: »

Wages are determined by supply and demand, how hard you work isn't the determining factor.

The more value you provide, the more wages you generally earn.

That's not true, higher paid CEO's are the worst performers:
forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/06/16/the-highest-paid-ceos-are-the-worst-performers-new-study-says/

Riskymove

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

It's not random, read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_ratio

It wasn't passed in Switzerland after a vote but there's a lot of people pushing their countries to consider it.

the 12:1 element is random rather than the concept itself

as metioned it already is in place by default in the PS given the rates shown


the Swiss and others are not looking to apply it to just the PS but as a principle across the economy which is at least something more than just wanting to pay PS less

Bubbaclaus

If I decide to start my own business in the future, I'll pay myself what ever the hell I like. I couldn't care less about how many begrudgers whine about it being "oh so unfair"

kiffer

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Salary is based on supply/demand. Getting the government involved will just make the market inefficient.

Yes. Let the market decide.
I'm sure that will result in a fair and sane result.
Of course when the market collapses it will be "but we're too big to fail! Bail us out! Help help!"

Alternating Current

KahBoom wrote: »

If the CEO wants the great privilege of being able to own a company and have that benefit from limited liability - a privilege granted to him by the public and government, since you don't just 'create' a company from nothing, their structure/workings are laid down in law - then he can follow whatever other rules the public/government lay down, in exchange for that privilege (including a salary cap).

A CEO doesn't usually own a company.

If you set up your own company you've done the hard work yourself, you should be entitled to pay whatever you want.

KyussBishop is obsessed with this nonsense.

KahBoom

Alternating Current wrote: »

A CEO doesn't usually own a company.

If you set up your own company you've done the hard work yourself, you should be entitled to pay whatever you want.

KyussBishop is obsessed with this nonsense.

You're entitled only to whatever the regulations surrounding companies/business, say you're allowed to - regulations which can be made to restrict your salary - it's a two-way street, companies have to put up with restrictions, if they want limited liability and other such benefits.

Alternating Current

kiffer wrote: »

Yes. Let the market decide.
I'm sure that will result in a fair and sane result.
Of course when the market collapses it will be "but we're too big to fail! Bail us out! Help help!"

Yes, and if then you let a company fail. People generally speaking are driven by self interest. We need to build are society around these realities.

Tiddlypeeps

Dave! wrote: »

It's a contract entered into voluntarily, so therefore the compensation the employee receives should meet their needs, or else they won't work there.

In the real world it doesn't work out that way.Often, like in Ireland at the moment, there are less jobs than there are people. This is why minimum wage exists, if it didn't employers would pay as little as they could get away with, which for unskilled labour would be much lower than the current minimum wage. Because of the lack of jobs people would have no choice but to accept it. This is a big issue in the US at the moment in areas with very low minimum wage (which is most areas of the US), the likes of Wallmart and other big box companies take advantage to the point that most of their employees need some sort of government assistance just to survive.

Saying that I don't agree with this proposal as I already mentioned because it's fixing a problem that doesn't exist in Ireland. The imagined problem is fixed by having a high minimum wage, if employers have to pay people on the bottom more then they have less to pay the people at the top. Fixing it from the top down doesn't make sense because there is no way to ensure the money saved ends up in the pockets of the people on the ground floor, and in most cases it would simply end up going back to the shareholders as extra profit.

If you look at the wiki link I posted before you can see there is a major correlation between income inequality and minimum wage levels.

jackofalltrades

KahBoom wrote: »

Well the logic for this is simple - given the article/study I posted earlier, showing higher paid CEO's are generally the worst performers, then by capping the highest wages we can either 1: make companies perform better, and/or 2: stop rewarding people excessively, when they aren't doing a better job.

It's individual companies responsibility to manage the performance of their CEO's. It's none of the states business.

Dan_Solo

Armelodie wrote: »

do the maths fella , lowest wage in public service would be about 20k... 12x20k = 240k

Who in the public service is getting that? Maybe a few but would reducing their wage a few k to make the ratio wouldnt really get you that much.

And how does it help the person on the lowest wage!

A few thousand consultants I'd imagine.

alb

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

Have you seen bitcoin share prices? I salute anyone who made money from it and got out because it's never going to be popular!

Bitcoin doesn't have shares, it's not a company.

Bubbaclaus

kiffer wrote: »

Yes. Let the market decide.
I'm sure that will result in a fair and sane result.
Of course when the market collapses it will be "but we're too big to fail! Bail us out! Help help!"

Ah...so this is what it's about. Makes perfect sense now.


Could be a good argument to use for the Dole too actually: Your post again edited to be about the dole:

kiffer wrote: »

Yes. Let the job market decide.
I'm sure that will result in a fair and sane result.
Of course when the job market collapses it will be "but we're too big to fail! Give us Social Welfare! Help help!"

KahBoom

jackofalltrades wrote: »

It's individual companies responsibility to manage the performance of their CEO's. It's none of the states business.

That's a bit of a truism. Nobody is arguing that it is currently the states business, people are arguing it should be the states business, to put in place a salary cap.

Tiddlypeeps

There is also the fact that this is totally unworkable. There is nothing stopping a company offering other perks as compensation to make up for the reduction due to regulation, at the very least they can be offered shares which will pay out dividends each year based on profits. It's totally unenforceable.

House of Blaze

It seems to me that what the op is really talking about is inequality, which has in recent years returned to an approximately pre 1920's level in the developed world.

www(dot)democracyjournal.org/33/the-inequality-puzzle.php?page=all

The 1 to 12 ratio discussed in the OP has simply been labelled as something of a 'sweet spot' for producing fairer and more economically robust society by some macroeconomists.

However there is a growing realisation that more equal societies are more productive societies. Even as recently as April this year the IMF published a document which found that

"there is surprisingly little evidence for the growth - destroying effects of fiscal redistribution at a macroeconomic level. We do find some mixed evidence that very large redistributions may have direct negative effects on growth duration, such that the overall effect — including the positive effect on growth through lower inequality — may be roughly growth - neutral.

But for non - extreme redistributions, there is no evidence of any adverse direct effect . The average redistribution, and the associated reduction in inequality, is thus associated with higher and more durable growth."

www(dot)imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf

Bubbaclaus

What would a salary cap actually achieve?

It would just allow the owners of the business to receive larger dividends from the resulting larger profits. A salary cap would actually just cause the owners to get more money. The people for a salary cap should think before they post.

Akrasia

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Salary is based on supply/demand. Getting the government involved will just make the market inefficient.

Not always. Excessive incomes are also very often commanded due to rent seeking behaviour.

kiffer

Alternating Current wrote: »

Yes, and if then you let a company fail. People generally speaking are driven by self interest. We need to build are society around these realities.

Yes, you are correct, knowing that many people are driven by self interest, some solely driven by it, we should seek to limit the damage they can do.
The reality is that if we didn't have regulations, and checks and balances we would end up with more pollution and more poverty.

Akrasia

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

There is also the fact that this is totally unworkable. There is nothing stopping a company offering other perks as compensation to make up for the reduction due to regulation, at the very least they can be offered shares which will pay out dividends each year based on profits. It's totally unenforceable.

no it's not. If the government can collect taxes all they need to do is put an extra tax band of 98% or something very high at a threshold deemed to the maximum socially acceptable income level.

When we have a very small number of very high net worth individuals they inevitably corrupt the political and economic system.

Alternating Current

kiffer wrote: »

Yes, you are correct, knowing that many people are driven by self interest, some solely driven by it, we should seek to limit the damage they can do.
The reality is that if we didn't have regulations, and checks and balances we would end up with more pollution and more poverty.

Yes I agree, and we should also harness self interest so it benefits society. Ie let entrepreneurs earn as much as they want as it creates jobs.

kiffer

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Ah...so this is what it's about. Makes perfect sense now.


Could be a good argument to use for the Dole too actually: Your post again edited to be about the dole:

Um... do you think you are making a good point?

Bubbaclaus

Akrasia wrote: »

maximum socially acceptable income level.

The thought of this makes my skin crawl. A socially acceptable income level?

So a guy who built up business empire will be capped to the same amount of income as a guy with a single small business?

What about people that make a killing on the stock market? Will their profits above a certain amount be completely taken off them?

What about lotto winners? Will the winners of the Euromillions only be allowed keep 250k or so with the rest going to the government?