Strikes

[Mjl]

I didn't say the lowest paid, I said all the employees. I take even more issue with just raising pay for the lowest paid - those are mostly kids. I would hope the raises would go to all the store employees.

And to stay profitable, yeah, it's need to be less than a $3-per-hour raise. Or they'd have to raise prices on everything, which harms more people than it helps.

[MICHHAWK]

right now that cart full of groceries costs way more than it did 24 months ago.

[ousdahl]

My first reaction to those tweets was, I wonder if these figures are legit.


And I realize a CEO’s salary divided among half a million workers or whatever is like $40 each. But there’s also the issue of how a company that does over $100 billion in revenue also have the majority their workforce living in poverty.

I’m curious about what sort of returns shareholders enjoy

And how buybacks work. Rather than that $1.3 billion in buybacks, if that went back to half a million workers, that’s another $2600 a year or so. That’s not a make or break number, except for those for whom it is.

But, gutter makes a good point. No one is forced to work there, or to stay there.

So among other points we could discuss, I guess there’s some grander socioeconomic question, perhaps, of exactly why someone would want to work, and stay, in poverty working for a multi-billion dollar corporation?

[ousdahl]

right now that cart full of groceries costs way more than it did 24 months ago.

Mjl mentions this - grocery prices jacked up to pay for higher salaries.

But are the salaries growing proportionally with the prices?

And is it worth asking whether wages are growing proportionally with salaries too?

[Cascadia]

I didn't say the lowest paid, I said all the employees. I take even more issue with just raising pay for the lowest paid - those are mostly kids. I would hope the raises would go to all the store employees.

And to stay profitable, yeah, it's need to be less than a $3-per-hour raise. Or they'd have to raise prices on everything, which harms more people than it helps.

We know, that might put a dent in your personal bonus.

[ousdahl]

Rising costs at the register: just more business as usual.

Rising costs of wages: NOW LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!

[Cascadia]

Rising costs at the register: just more business as usual.

Rising costs of wages: NOW LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!

Bro, how are executives supposed to afford another vacation home if we give workers a livable wage?

Not only that, but we also need an irrational number of high paid middle management types that essentially do nothing all day. Most are middle aged white guys so you should support your brothers!

[ousdahl]

Ha.

Let’s not be too antagonistic. If someone, particularly a fellow poster, has a good thing going that they worked for and earned, let’s not take that away from them.

I almost hesitated to post the tweets cuz of just that. But if we can discuss without being to antagonistic, I think it’s an interesting socioeconomic issue with a lot of angles.

[KUTradition]

Rising costs at the register: just more business as usual.

Rising costs of wages: NOW LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!

Bro, how are executives supposed to afford another vacation home if we give workers a livable wage?

Not only that, but we also need an irrational number of high paid middle management types that essentially do nothing all day. Most are middle aged white guys so you should support your brothers!

mich assured us that those unnecessary mid-level positions don’t exist anymore

[Mjl]

You can take all of the compensation from the executives and it wouldn't "provide a living wage" for every employee. And you'd have no executives. I'm not doing that job for free. Or for my salary. Not sure who would.

[Cascadia]

Rising costs at the register: just more business as usual.

Rising costs of wages: NOW LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!

Bro, how are executives supposed to afford another vacation home if we give workers a livable wage?

Not only that, but we also need an irrational number of high paid middle management types that essentially do nothing all day. Most are middle aged white guys so you should support your brothers!

mich assured us that those unnecessary mid-level positions don’t exist anymore

They definitely exist. The last two companies I've worked for are full of them. One with 55,000 employees, the other with 35 employees. Starting a new job with a company of 1,100 or so, I'll let you know when I learn more.

[ousdahl]

You can take all of the compensation from the executives and it wouldn't "provide a living wage" for every employee. And you'd have no executives. I'm not doing that job for free. Or for my salary. Not sure who would.

How’s it work for shareholders and buybacks and stuff then?

How’s that much grow relative to prices, wages, other metrics?

And I almost wanna sincerely ask “what exactly do executives do and why do we need them,” but I know that sounds flippant.

[Cascadia]

You can take all of the compensation from the executives and it wouldn't "provide a living wage" for every employee. And you'd have no executives. I'm not doing that job for free. Or for my salary. Not sure who would.

You're such an out of touch douchbag. There is probably a minimum of 100 million people in this country and billions of people worldwide who would gladly perform an executive's job at Kroger for your salary.

Privileged white people are the worst.

[Mjl]

Ha.

Let’s not be too antagonistic. If someone, particularly a fellow poster, has a good thing going that they worked for and earned, let’s not take that away from them.

I almost hesitated to post the tweets cuz of just that. But if we can discuss without being to antagonistic, I think it’s an interesting socioeconomic issue with a lot of angles.

Yeah, I mean, there's sort of an implicit strike going on now with the whole country. People are holding out for company's to raise wages for "unskilled" (but by no means easy) jobs. And employers are hoping for that to blow over.

Eventually something's gotta give.

Either some employers are going to see success by raising wages, forcing competitors to follow, and we'll get massive inflation, but wages will rise. They kinda cancel out.

Or, people will need to make rent and take the existing wages. Inflation stays under control, but wages stay low.

Or, we continue with this tension, the government pumps in money to keep people afloat-yet-unemployed, and the only companies able to survive are giants like Kroger.

I'd prefer either of the first two.

[ousdahl]

“Or, people will need to make rent and take the existing wages. Inflation stays under control, but wages stay low.“

Man, capitalism is such a ruthless system.

Yeah, no one is FORCED to work for poverty wages, so you always have the option of freezing to death instead

[ousdahl]

I think there’s the option of rethinking the whole capitalist system, and model of shareholders-over-everything.

Why should hundreds of thousands of workers have to live in poverty, just so a few rich folks who contributed nothing more than a one-time investment can sit around and keep getting richer?

But that’s some radical Qusdahl shit, I know.

I’ll just take the free market option, and hope wages are raised. It’s basic supply and demand, really.

[Mjl]

You can take all of the compensation from the executives and it wouldn't "provide a living wage" for every employee. And you'd have no executives. I'm not doing that job for free. Or for my salary. Not sure who would.

You're such an out of touch douchbag. There is probably a minimum of 100 million people in this country and billions of people worldwide who would gladly perform an executive's job at Kroger for your salary.

Privileged white people are the worst.

That's actually kinda fair

[japhy]

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the concept of dividends. And stock markets. And heck, capitalism.

What is the appropriate portion to reward those with money to burn all along who made a one-time investment; versus those risking health and lives to actually do the work?

Yes, it is another of my long winded screeds.....

Dividends work in different ways in different types of corporations. I own a small percentage of subchapter S corp. Medium sized company (250 employees ) with revenues in the range of $30M. In our firm high performers are given the chance to own stock after a 2-10 year proving period. If you hired on right after college it might be 10 years, if you came to us with 10 years experience it might take 2 years to prove yourself. It is expensive, and to buy in you put every penny you save over the course of several years into the first purchase. It costs about $30-40K cash for initial buy in. Stock values rise and fall. During the recession some of my partners stopped buying and I bought as much as possible. The stock price was down, but I thought things would rebound. When I stopped buying in, pretty much my entire life savings was vested in a single stock, the one I felt like I had the most control over since I was one of the partners. All in, I invested about $400K in my "employer". The idea is you plow your dividend checks back into more ownership each year. Dividends would typically pay for the stock purchase each year and you would have a small bonus as well annually. Once you stop buying, the dividends start piling up.

We take 75% of profit after taxes and pay that out as dividends to the owners. 25% of profit goes to employee bonuses, which range from about 1.5 to 2 months of salary. We dump the cash each year to keep from holding money in the corp and increasing stock values to the point where new owners find it prohibitive to buy in. Every year there is a balance struck between holding money for future growth expenses, tax concerns and stock value. You want to promote new owners otherwise the first group of stockholders have no one to sell stock to on their way out other than another larger corporation. Profits run about 15-25% of revenue. After 25 years of ownership my stock is valued at about 2x my initial buy in. I might have done better in mutual funds of some sort but owning a percentage of the firm allows me to control my employer to some extent. The dividends for those who bought in and weathered the lean years have been good, they are about 1.5-2x times my salary.

This is nothing like Kroger in that we are a small professional corporation with highly paid employees (average salary is probably $70k right now) with good benefits. We keep turnover as low as possible because recruiting is expensive and takes time.

I did the actual work for a long time before most of the employees ever started. And standing in a JLG lift 120 above the ground is a risk to life and limb. So is crawling inside a partially collapsed building only to realize that the only thing holding up the collapsed roof is a piano that you are now under is as well. I wouldn't let an employee do some of this shit today but when it needed to get done I did it myself.

And yes, I walked 10 miles to school and it was uphill in both directions you cynical millennial fucks!

This is probably a pretty common scenario for a lot of smaller professional corporations and small corporations in general. The Owners have gone all in on their future in one investment. Some win and some have lost everything. When I married my wife, she looked at my portfolio and thought I was crazy, all my eggs in one basket. One big mistake on one big project and the firm is worth nothing. That is still true. But the risk was worth the reward in the long run. To think that dividends are a way to make money doing nothing is a poor generalization. Sure there are the exceptions of people being born rich and just plowing the money into making more money without effort. But somewhere back in the family line was probably a story like mine where someone worked their asses off and risked everything and gave their entire career/worklife to building up something of value. The next generation of owners in my firm will make even more money if they make good choices and manage risk.

My life savings now are going into making one of the most impoverished towns in the country into something the locals can build their future on. It's a researched calculated risk. But I will probably make some money doing it and not feel a twinge of guilt about it. If the townspeople burn me at the stake in the future, I am down for that as well.

Communal property for the benefit of the many is great concept, but first someone has to buy the property.

Explain to me why I am an evil capitalist. I will probably tell you that you are full of shit afterwards but I will listen.

This economic betterment all runs on the capitalism. My grandfather was a grain mill laborer in eastern CO during the depression, his kids picked up coal along the train tracks after school so they could heat their shack. My dad enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War so he could go to school on the GI Bill and have a better life. I went to college and picked a degree that would give me a more stable living than my father. My daughters have picked their own path with their own goals in mind. Stock ownership and money made off that has been part of all of those paths. While employment can be biased and block upward mobility, the stock market takes anyone's money. There are insiders making more moneyed all of that but it has proven over the long haul to be way up for the little people.

If you want to "follow your passion", you better figure out a way to finance that. Because "passion" is not necessarily a path to financial independence.

We are currently diversifying investments now based upon two strategies, dividends and stock price growth. How large corporations play their financials influences both. We also look at the company and consider their ethics. It's that woke capitalism that is so feared by the Right. If you really want to change how these companies treat employees and how the do business, get some skin in the game. Once a large group of woke investors demand that Kroger change their way of doing business, you might see them listening. The demands of the picket line will sound louder if they are amplified by someone inside the board room.

If you don't think little people can have power on Wall Street look at Gamestop. A bunch of dweebs on Reddit decided to make a statement, it was an improbable concept. But they did it.

[ousdahl]

TLDR.

Just kidding. Great post! Lots of morsels to marinate on.

Yeah I suppose there’s all sorts of corporate models and stuff. How often are shares offered only to employees who have stuck around and prove themselves? I can dig that model. How often can stocks in a bidness be bought by any old sap with the cash to do it?

One big thing that jumped out at me, that I think makes Japhy less evil than the average capitalist, is that you’re investing in your own company, that you’ve been a part of, and helped do the work to grow, and crawled under pianos for.

Too often, I’m afraid it’s the opposite - investors buy stocks in companies just cuz they think it’ll give a good dividend, with limited interest in or connection to the company or all its stakeholders beyond that. Seems there can be a disconnect. Maybe even by design.

As for “75% of profit after taxes and pay that out as dividends to the owners” who decides that? Is it a legal standard? Or by industry or company? What’s the average and stuff for that metric across the economy?

And this has been suggested, but what are the parallels to investing in stocks, and just good old fashioned gambling? There’s gotta be a good compare/contrast right? So much of the language, the way we talk about it, sounds so similar.

Go all in, some win and some loose everything, all your eggs in one basket, risk risk risk but think of the potential reward, take anyone’s money, are we talking the stock market or the craps table here?

Starting a new post, so in this one my last question will be, when you walked 10 miles to school uphill both ways was it barefoot in the snow too?

[ousdahl]

“We keep turnover as low as possible because recruiting is expensive and takes time.” - great point, but this is so lost on so many bidnesses, both big and small. This rarely gets more than lip service, if that. More often, it’s something to the effect of “we just can’t raise wages, won’t someone think of the shareholders?!”

We also look at the company and consider their ethics. It's that woke capitalism that is so feared by the Right. If you really want to change how these companies treat employees and how the do business, get some skin in the game. Once a large group of woke investors demand that Kroger change their way of doing business, you might see them listening. The demands of the picket line will sound louder if they are amplified by someone inside the board room.”

- I can dig. so how do we promote this woke capitalism? For instance, picking on Kroger again sorry, how do we get shareholders to stop and say maybe these dividends just aren’t as sweet now that I acknowledge it took hundreds of thousands of workers living in poverty for me to enjoy them?

I dig the concept, but it ultimately seems like the only thing anyone cares about is their own money.

And there’s this underlying issue of classism, or somethin. It would be great if more in the bored room shared the concerns of those in the picket line, so how do we get that? How do we get those in power to look it those not in power as fellow human beings, rather than just some sorta economic cogs?

The longer anyone has to endure poverty, the less likely they are to ever get any skin in the game, I’d imagine. And the longer those in a position of economic power, the more they seem to do to maintain and concentrate that power.

For instance!

“If you don't think little people can have power on Wall Street look at Gamestop. A bunch of dweebs on Reddit decided to make a statement, it was an improbable concept. But they did it.”

Did they?

Or did the hedge fund assholes who just got beat at their own game go and use their economic power to have the fed nip that one in the bud for them?