Replies to post #92235 on Your Economy (No Politics) (YE1)

[arizona1]

The same goes for Target, Home Depot and the rest. They are spending billions (with a B) on buying back their stock. How is that going to help anyone but their shareholders?

[JLS]

It's not that complicated.

Simple formula: any well run company will pay as little as it can to get the quality of worker it needs while not disrupting business.

Elasticity of investment: any well run company already operates at the peak of its cost/benefit curve. That means that there is nothing left to do to improve profitability as costs go higher -- any change in operation that has a dollar cost will only lower net income after expenses. They are already benefiting as much as possible through automation.

Walmart is not a company that is not well run.

Therefore, the only way to improve the reward/work ratio for those at the bottom of the ladder is to legislate minimum wages at the low end while also limiting excessive wages at the high end. This country doesn't do that because the Eligere are in control. And they are in control because they were rich in the first place, and they are the only ones who can afford to run for public office.

Most people would work their ass off if they could get paid $250K per year. Could they work any smarter or harder if they were paid $1M per year or $10M per year. I say hell no. And yet there are CEOs who are getting over $100M per year is stock and pay. Stop the madness!

We need to tax the crap out of anyone making over $500K per year, and we need to tax the crap out of excessive retirement programs of both public and private companies. Corporate management doesn't need any more than that and they can still get stupid rich.

And we need to totally eliminate excessive pay and retirement benefits for public employees.