re: Libs: why do corporate profits anger you?

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The environment: Yes, I agree to a large extent. But my objection is that libs take it too far. Any human activity is going to hurt the environment. So some harm will come from business activity. And often time regulation harms innovation and improvement that would actually help. But I agree with you in principle

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We're probably in agreement here. Many libs do take environmental protection too far, and there are many EPA regulations that are onerous and pointless. My biggest issue here is with the oil & gas industry. They spend buckoos of money lobbying to reduce environmental protections while they have a very spotty record, overall, in environmental violations.

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I think labor gets what it's worth.

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I just think an adult working a full time job should be able to function in society without relying on government assistance. That is not happening, for various reasons. It's not all on corporations, but there has been a growing disparity in executive pay and working class pay.

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What the hell does this even mean?

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What is that corporation doing to ensure the stability of the community they are located in? What are they doing to help the schools, the infrastructure, are they committed long-term to remaining in that community and seeing it prosper?

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crony capitalism

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This is a definite prog buzzword...how do you define this?

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but it absolutely disgusts me that a company like Apple hordes $250B in cash while our country is crumbling around us.

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Except the country is not crumbling.

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it absolutely disgusts me that a company like Apple hordes $250B in cash

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But...do you think the gov should have access to that money?

Do you think Apple should be forced to pay for infrastructure projects?

Do you think Apple should open soup kitchens & homeless shelters?

And...our country isn't really 'crumbling around us'.

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I'm far from a lib, but it absolutely disgusts me that a company like Apple hordes $250B in cash while our country is crumbling around us.

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Uhm, maybe you are a liberal?

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underpay employees to the point they have to remain on government asistance(though they have gotten better at this in recent years), while their executives are raking in money. It's legal exploitation.

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I just don't understand how it's even possible to underpay. What is the value of the employee to the company (whether its a mom and pop shop or a major corporation)? What value do you add, and can someone else add the same value for less money? I view a job in that capacity. I provide a service to a company that pays me to do so. If I am worth more, I need to prove it by having other options that will actually pay me more, or in some way show the company that. If they can replace me and get an acceptable output from my replacement for less, than I'm not worth my salary. I don't know where we've gotten off thinking that my employer some how becomes responsible for my well being. It ends there. So why would Walmart pay someone more, when they can get any idiot off the street willing to do that same job for minimum wage. I don't give a shite if it's a living wage. It's not walmart's fault you aren't worth a living wage.

I'm not saying I'm completely apathetic to anyone's plight of having to deal with poverty because of the hand that they were dealt. I'm just saying that it's not any corporation's fault. And I hate the idea of artificially inflating wages as it does more harm than good (we are just shifting the value of things, not actually adding value).

In terms of executives raking in high salaries.....they are getting paid for what they provide to the company. I work for a major corporation and a few fellow employees complained about our CEO's massive bonus while we laid off 30% of the workforce. In my opinion he weathered the company through a VERY rough storm and even though he made on big error, we totally rebounded from it and came out pretty strong for the current conditions. He kept our stock higher than I'd have expected. He doesn't have a responsibility to his employees to make sure they have a job when they aren't needed. He has a responsibility to the investors who demand the highest stock price possible. And he did just that, probably better than most could, so I don't care about the bonus all that much.

I also realize that this is a ideological view, and to some extent, regulation has helped some situations in the past (child labor, monopolies, etc.). But that's not the situation we are in. There are certainly corrupt organization. But the majority of complaints are hefty CEO salaries while the common man suffers. Well, the problem is that the common man just isn't worth all that much right now.


Yeah, that's a wall of text

I was looking forward to what Yoga Girl had to say

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I have never been mad that someone in a higher ranking position makes more money than me.

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I never have either. That is not my issue. My issue us when a corporation claims it can't afford to pay its line-level workers a "living wage"(and I realize that is a very loaded term) while its executives are getting massive bonuses on top of their already huge salaries. Certainly, quality executives should be well paid when a corporation is performing well.

But let's look at Carly Fiorina. By some accounts, she was a bad CEO while at HP. They decided to fire her, but gave her a severance check of a few million when they did. How many low level employees lost their jobs because of bad decisions she may have made? I don't know if any did. But what about Blue Bell? Their management knew of the listeria problems in some of their creameries, yet did nothing to correct the problem. When it came out to the public, who lost their jobs? The line level employees that had nothing to do with the problem. All of management kept their jobs. situations like these are what piss me off about corporations.

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We have failing roads, failing bridges, failing schools,run down airports, poverty everywhere we look, drug addiction, and a host of other problems.

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The USA has the best transportation network in the world by a huge margin.

Yes there are poors, but our per-capita GDP is fantastic.

Drug addiction is everywhere and no amount of funding is going to pay it away.