Food for thought...
Google made 60 billion this year. They have 31000 employes. Thats almost 2 million dollars a worker.
Lets just half of that so the big shots can have more. Thats still 1 million a worker.
I wonder what the jaintor makes there?
You obviously don't know much about how things work. They made 60 billion? OK, where is it? Sitting in a vault in their yard and they go swimming in it everyday? First off, the "big shots" are paid a salary like anyone else, they have a contract, sometimes those contracts include bonuses if certain conditions are met, but they don't get 60 billion dollars.
Second, a great deal of that money is re-invested in new technologies, but I guess you think new ideas and products just magically appear? Another chunk of that money goes into a bank where it's loaned out to people so they can buy a house, a car, go to school, or maybe start their own business, but I guess in your mind start up capital just appears eh?
Anyone, even you, can buy stock in Google, when Google profits a great deal of it goes to the stockholders. As for what the janitor makes that is determined by the market, tho I doubt you know much about market forces either based on your statement.
Finally, yes, I won't deny it, there are many people higher up in Google that are making tons of money, living in big mansions, driving fancy cars, so what? They earned that money and it is theirs, not yours. I always love people who do nothing yet feel they have some right to dictate to others as to what they should do with the fruits of their labors.
Awwww the almighty "free market". When I sell a car I have 3 prices Family, friends and all others. So i don't let the free market control me like a drone.
shareLol. So the FREE Market, a system where people VOLUNTARILY exchange goods and services is controlling you like a drone, but a system where self-righteous types like you sit around and dictate to others by force what they can and can't do is independence in your mind? Too funny.
shareAre you saying I should charge my family the same I would a stranger?
shareI say you should just give it away. To paraphrase Gordon Gekko, "a fool and his car are lucky to get together in the first place"
No, seriously, I say you should charge what you want to charge. It's yours to do with as you please. Of course the free market will determine if that price is too steep or not.
After-market private-party sales are a great determining factor for what something is really worth. You'll never get full price for a Beanie Baby again...
I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is..
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Real life example: I inhearted a 1992 oldsmobile from my Uncle when he died. I had a good friend that was down on his luck and offered it to him for free. He had just got a new job an didn't need it anymore.
The so called "free market" the going rate for this car was roughly 3 grand so I put it in Craigs List for 4 grand, figuring the buyer would dicker with me on the price.
Long story short ,,I sold it for $3200.
My Uncle bought it new for 14 Grand so he hadn't died he would have lost $11,800.
Since I made a 3200 dollar profit on it your saying in "Utopia" of the Rand future someone would be forced to pay $17,200 for it to equal the same profit that I would have made?
This is last I'm saying because either you are just trolling or you are truly the most dense person I have ever met.
Listen to me very carefully: In the free market no one is forced to sell anyone anything at any price, nor is anyone forced to buy anything, why do you keep saying this nonsense? It is YOU who are suggesting some "utopia" where some kind of divine book dictates prices and wages.
Market value is just the average rate that similar things, whether they be labor or goods, are going for, it is not a law and no one is ever forced to give anyone anything, you can give your car way for free if you want, someone can pay you a million dollars if they want, that is between you and them, all a free market says is that it must be voluntary.
When people say a persons wage is determined by the market it does not mean it's a set in stone law, if you can go in and negotiate a higher wage than the going market rate than that is what you will get, however that is unlikely because the market rate is what most employers and employees have found is the max an employer will pay balanced against the minimum a worker will work for, and example:
obviously a brick layer will not do that job for 50 cents an hour, on the other hand no one will pay him $200/hr, so it's not .50, it's not 200.00, so what is his salary? They bat it back and forth till they meet somewhere in the middle ideally, but then again maybe they won't, maybe they can't come to an agreement and they both try their luck elsewhere and perhaps the brick layer will have to adjust his thinking and accept something lower, then again the employer may have to adjust his thinking and raise his offer, bottom line, it all is voluntary, there is no force.
So since Bill Gates is still majority stock holder in MS he can pay the janitor $200,000 a year if he wants to?
shareGates can pay his housekeeper $200k/year, but under the corporation I'm sure their bylaws have certain avenues of discussion regarding how much to pay a janitor. The Custodial Department at microsoft doesn;t have carte blanche to arbitrarily offer a janitor $200K/year.
I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is..
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If Gates is majoprity stock holder he can what he wants.
shareUh... no he can't. That's the curse of being a corporation rather than a private owner. Bill Gates can't just arbitrarily say "screw software. We're now in the business of making stuffed rabbits". As a majority stock holder his votes have a lot of weight, but it's no different than how Steve Jobs can be fired from Apple even if he has a majority of the shares.
I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is..
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umm...actually, if someone owns the majority of a corporation they effectively can do whatever they want. minority shareholders have practically no power when it comes to business decisions. trust me, having been in the position myself, being a minority shareholder when the majority shareholders start doing stupid stuff is an incredibly painful experience.
however, bill gates doesn't own a majority of microsoft shares, and steve jobs didn't own a majority of apple shares when he was kicked to the curb. neither one of you has a valid real-world argument here.
if steve jobs had a majority of apple shares he could not have been fired unless he allowed it himself - which he might do, if he saw that his staying in power would have resulted in the share value tanking or the company going under.
However, by law, the majority shareholder has a fiduciary duty to the corporation and, by default, the minority shareholders.
Of course this doesn't prevent stupidity. I believe that paying your janitorial staff $200K/year (or changing the corporation to "The Microsoft Fluffy Bunny Company Inc.") might fall into that category.
I didn't mean to imply that majority shareholders are powerless. Just that there are limitations to what they can do (i.e. that they cannot do whatever the hell they want)
I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is..
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you'd think that'd be the case, but it doesn't work like that in practice.
if the majority shareholder thinks that fluffy bunnies & $200k janitors are the way to go, then that's what will happen. stupidity is almost explicitly allowed. illegality is not, but it's not illegal to pay janitors $200k or try to develop the fluffiest bunny.
actually it's the ceo who decides these things. unless the majority shareholder is also the ceo, the most the majority shareholder(s) can do is fire the ceo and replace him with one who will do the bidding of the majority.
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You're conflating two different issues. As for banks loaning out more money than they have you and I are on the same page with that one, it should never happen, but talk to the govt and all the people who were promoting the nonsense that "everyone deserves a home", and you also leave out that those banks did not put a gun to anyone's head and make them take out loans they couldn't repay, plenty of blame to go around on that one.
For the most part people are on food stamps because they are lazy and make bad decisions, and don't even come back at me with some lame sob story, I don't doubt there may be a few exceptions to the rule, but most people are just moochers.
As for a "living wage" that is such a small-minded slogan. Just what is a living wage Leslie, give me the exact dollar amount, and is that just hourly wage, or then do you also want medical benefits, how much vacation, how many paid holidays, life insurance, 401K, then what if I get married, have a kid, two, three, does my boss have to give me a raise each time?
It is NO ONE else responsibility to give you a "living wage" not your boss, not your neighbor, not the government, no one, it is your responsibility to obtain a skill set that is marketable and in demand, or here's a thought, go start your own business instead of criticizing all those who did.
ALso, Google buys a lot of other companies, which means those people who invested to build those companies make their money back plus some.
Without that incentive to want to build businesses in the hopes of being acquired, you get the Soviet Union, where nobody wanted to work, because the fruits of their labors were not theirs.
And just look at that paragon of free market capitalism, CUBA, where 80% of the workforce makes $20 per MONTH working for the government.
WHAT A DEAL!
I do wish the prog marxist left would already move out of the USA they hate so much, move to North Korea, or Venezuela or any one of dozens of other failed, bankrupt, hopeless socialist utopias scattered around the world. I mean if marxist socialism is so grand, how come Mexico does not have a problem of Americans sneaking into Mexico rather than the other way around?
so mexico is a marxist socialist country now? when did that happen, and how could i have missed the revolution?
sharegoogle didn't "make" $60billion, they had revenue of roughly that amount.
when you figure out the difference between profit and revenue, we can start to have a conversation. this is basic business 101 level material, so perhaps you can master it.