Wisconsin is not Egypt ... yet

[zlordsahan]

Not to appear in favor of unions or support Threnn's argument (I dislike unions as well), I would argue that 'wasting' money paying that guy $50/hour installing door handles that no one wanted is not a terribly bad thing on the long term. That guy will spend his money buying a home and sending his kids to college- in essence putting that money back into the economy. On the other hand, CEOs earning hundreds of millions in salary and bonuses put a much smaller percentage back into the economy (they spend it on private jets and overpriced property in Dubai).

I've always found it amazing that governments manage to create thousands of legislations to manage every minute aspect of the workplace of the guy making minimum wage, yet they are unable to curb the riddiculous executive compensation packages.

How fair is it for people making $50k to have to figure out how to fill out a very complex tax form to save $200 at the end of the day, vs. the guy making $50 million not even having to see what a tax form looks like? I know 'fairness' is not a pillar of the capitalist system, but it is a human nature to rebel against what is perceived as injustice for a long time.

At first, I felt the thread title was an improperly used analogy, but the more I think about it I think Nynnja has got a point.

[Drewbie]

Personally, I would love to see corporate C-level salaries tied to a multiple of the lowest paid employee within the company. For example, with a multiplier of even 100 for the CEO, if they paid their lowest paid worker minimum wage of $7.25/hr full time for an annual salary of roughly $15,000, the CEO could then make $1.5 million per year. The CEO wants a raise, everybody else needs to get on too.

I read an article about a company writing a 10x multiplier rule into their corporate by-laws and always thought that was a great idea.

[digiphreak]

Whether you like unions or not this proposal is simply bad fiscal policy that has been rushed to a vote. I have problems with unions, partisan politics, and the corporate greed machine that is our state and national government. I work alongside many state of Wisconsin employees and I wouldn't trade my private sector wage and benefits for their union negotiated job and benefits.

Here's a good look (pdf warning) at some of the short sightedness of this bill.

Also of note - this bill doesn't effect police and fire unions, the public sector unions that backed Gov. Walker during his campaign, and the whole thing just kind of stinks.

Of course I have problems with the union too, but this isn't the way to go about fixing it.

[digiphreak]

Update: Senate democrats didn't show up to work today. :O

"Sen. Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) confirmed Thursday that Democrats are boycotting the Senate action on the bill in efforts to block a quorum and keep the measure from passing. Because 20 senators of the 33-member house are needed to be present to pass a fiscal bill, the body's 19 Republicans will not be enough to pass the budget repair bill without at least one Democrat present."

http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/116381289.html

[Drewbie]

Sure, he needs the police and fireworkers to back this first, then after he gets it, he can come after them and have the support of the people that lost the first round as they think it's only fair that they all lose their rights.

[Threnn]

I sense a straw man argument coming up!

Yup, there it is.

Totally. Because acting like you can "sense something" when you already have all the text in front of you to parse makes you a genius!

Or it doesn't.

This thread isn't about CEOs. If you want to start that thread, be my guest, but it's a completely separate thing to bitch about. Unions and corporations oppose one another,

You can't easily complain about public sector jobs without comparing them to private sector jobs as the basis for your complaint- and Nynnja's comment about the UAW "door handle man" was referring to a private sector union job for a corporation.

but so did Hitler and Stalin.

Well you clearly lost this argument by invoking Hitler...

Anyway... my wife works for a non-profit public sector employer in the form of a University hospital. She is in a nursing union- which is required to be employed there. They don't have a pension and pay for their own healthcare. Slightly ironic that a hospital won't provide free healthcare to their employees, don't you think? Ford gives you huge discounts on a car for being someone's 3rd cousin.

Oh hey... maybe that's why they have problems...

[Threnn]

That guy will spend his money buying a home and sending his kids to college- in essence putting that money back into the economy. On the other hand, CEOs earning hundreds of millions in salary and bonuses put a much smaller percentage back into the economy (they spend it on private jets and overpriced property in Dubai).

This is a great point, Z. And for what it's worth, I'm not so much saying unions are always great as I am standing up to the general "unions are bad because they are unions" sentiment that seems to pervade topics like this.

To take it further, your comment about keeping the economy going is exactly why unemployment insurance and other "entitlement programs" are beneficial to the economy- yet are always the first thing people want to complain about or suggest cutting.

I think if you want to bleeding public coffers(i.e. the things that pay for all the services we enjoy), you start at the top. Put the 90% income tax bracket back in for anything over 5 million dollars. Now all of a sudden you'll have companies opting to put that money back into their company rather than paying out bigger salaries to smaller cliques. More money in the company means better paying jobs, more jobs, more economic growth.

This is sort of a different way of getting to the 100x or 10x multiplier Drew mentions. It leaves companies free to pay their corporate heads whatever they want- but anything beyond being comfortably rich at 5 million a year would be heavily taxed. And the taxes go back into what- public works, which means more jobs. So either way our society would benefit.

[zlordsahan]

How about he figures out how to stop drug/weapon dealers from operating subsidized child care centers and defrauding the state of Wisconsin of tens of millions of dollars first?

Shameful plug for the project I work on

[digiphreak]

Ahhh the Wisconsin Shares program fraud. Now theres government waste for you. Are you working a State of WI funded project? Federal? You're not in WI if I recall....

[Macheath]

Totally. Because acting like you can "sense something" when you already have all the text in front of you to parse makes you a genius!

Or it doesn't.

I think you missed the point, and now you've graduated from straw man arguments to ad hominem attacks. Congratulations!