So, Newname, how would you “redistribute” the net income? Have you ever invested and risked your own capital to start a business, dealt with all of the onerous regulation, paid many a payroll taxes, operated in the red for the first few years, and had to navigate unloyal, unreliable and scheming employees in the process? No? Didn’t think so. 95% of LRCs who even attempted to do this would fail and declare bankruptcy. This is the hard, cold truth.
You never have answers, only problems. Starbucks could commit to redistributing 20% of net income to employees and it would hard make a dent. Again, float your barista an extra $1 every time they make you a drink if you really care as you purport to. Or propose another solution, not just a whim.
But sure… the reason they’re not paying higher wages is that their taxes are ‘onerous’. Their CEO:worker compensation ratio is 11th worst in the S&P500; 1159:1.
So, Newname, how would you “redistribute” the net income? Have you ever invested and risked your own capital to start a business, dealt with all of the onerous regulation, paid many a payroll taxes, operated in the red for the first few years, and had to navigate unloyal, unreliable and scheming employees in the process? No? Didn’t think so. 95% of LRCs who even attempted to do this would fail and declare bankruptcy. This is the hard, cold truth.
You never have answers, only problems. Starbucks could commit to redistributing 20% of net income to employees and it would hard make a dent. Again, float your barista an extra $1 every time they make you a drink if you really care as you purport to. Or propose another solution, not just a whim.
But sure… the reason they’re not paying higher wages is that their taxes are ‘onerous’. Their CEO:worker compensation ratio is 11th worst in the S&P500; 1159:1.
Based on the table in that piece you provided (I’m not going to verify it, looks like propaganda but whatever), Starbucks paid 22.6% in Fed and state taxes annually post TCJA.
Go ahead and raise the corporate income tax to 27% as it suggests in the article. Fine by me, it won’t accrue to the workers though. It may stop investment and expansion. Is the CEO to worker pay ratio based on total compensation or just what’s actually likely to be realized in any given year? Very unclear.
But, again, as I said, take the CEO’s entire pay package, what do I care, and redistribute it to all of the 300,000 baristas who work 30 hours per week quoting Newname, and you will give them each a $0.24 per hour increase for one year only. But go ahead with this crude analysis.
But sure… the reason they’re not paying higher wages is that their taxes are ‘onerous’. Their CEO:worker compensation ratio is 11th worst in the S&P500; 1159:1.
Based on the table in that piece you provided (I’m not going to verify it, looks like propaganda but whatever), Starbucks paid 22.6% in Fed and state taxes annually post TCJA.
Go ahead and raise the corporate income tax to 27% as it suggests in the article. Fine by me, it won’t accrue to the workers though. It may stop investment and expansion. Is the CEO to worker pay ratio based on total compensation or just what’s actually likely to be realized in any given year? Very unclear.
But, again, as I said, take the CEO’s entire pay package, what do I care, and redistribute it to all of the 300,000 baristas who work 30 hours per week quoting Newname, and you will give them each a $0.24 per hour increase for one year only. But go ahead with this crude analysis.
Wonder if SB has any off shore shell companies were the "real " money sits that's not taxed?
I worked retail in the late-1980s and early 1990s and we made $3.35 per hour. Most of the full time workers made a bit more than me, but either had a spouse who made more money, or they lived with friends or co-workers. No one lived alone on that wage. A cheap apartment was $400/mo, representing more than 100 hours of work.
Today the expectation is that you should be able to afford a 2-bedroom apartment, alone, on what one can make at Starbucks, fast food, etc. There's a sense that this was possible in the "old days", but that's far from true.
In the 50s and 60s (talking about whites here, blacks and browns were getting screwed as usual), the typical working/middle class family had the non college educated husband working full time, with a stay at home wife, and 4-5 kids. They owned their own home and many owned a modest vacation home. There was a new car (families had -- and needed -- only one car. The wife and kids did not have to work to kick into supporting the family. The family could put however many kids thru college as went and did not take on a huge debt, it any debt at all.
Now both spouses work and teen-agers have to work and help out in many cases. Go to college and end up in hundreds of thousands of debt. Get sick and go bankrupt. Lucky to own their own home and, if do, usually have a huge mortgage on it. Forget the vacation home. Forget savings. Most live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm going to assume that most people who are critical of the idea of "low skilled" people organizing to increase their wages and benefits would also like to somehow "Make America Great Again".
The irony here is that period of erstwhile period of "Greatness" they typically have in mind was undergirded by the efforts of "low skilled" workers to organize and strike for better pay and benefits. How much skill and education do you think it took to work in a steel mill or turn a bolt on an assembly line?
From the 40s to the late 70s, there was a widespread recognition of the fact workers of all types could never increase their incomes to levels adequate to properly feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families by relying on "market forces". People knew that the inherent power imbalance between employers and workers would always ensure that wages for the vast majority of jobs would be driven down as close as possible to subsistence levels.
If there is work society needs doing the people who do this work shouldn't be shamed for doing it, or told it's their fault of they can't find more lucrative work. People who do useful work --meaning producing good and services that people like to buy-- need to be made full members or society, which means earning enough in wages and benefits to be able to pay their bills, raise kids, or do a little of whatever it is that makes them fully human. The last 45 years have amply shown that market forces alone will not make this state of affairs possible. Quite the opposite, in fact. So-called "free market" policies have typically only applied to markets for labor, while the owners of capital and affluent professionals have been allowed as a matter of policy to rig other forms of competition in their favor through everything from corporate consolidation to private schools and "legacy" access to the top universities, creating the grossly unequal "winners take all" society we now live in.
Right now, the ONLY possibility for a return of the "Greatness" of America from the 40s to the 70s (always a highly qualified Greatness, of course) rests on the ability of "unskilled" workers to organize and turn their jobs in warehouses, coffee shops, hospitals, hotels, and restaurants, etc-- jobs that produce the things we who have most of the income like to spend it on-- into the equivalent of the auto assembly, truck driving, mining, construction, steel manufacturing, dock working, and forestry jobs of that earlier era.
CEOs of large corporations that provide a better than average return on shareholder investment do provide more than 1000 times the value of the average employee and should get paid more than 1000 times the average employee.
Isn’t this classic capitalism? Workers are allowed to ask for more money. They are allowed to stop working if they don’t think they’re paid enough.
Starbucks can make the call if it’s worth paying them more or trying to find new workers who will work for less.
They can probably pass some increased labor costs on to customers but inelasticity of demand for decent coffee isn’t infinite.
The market solves this. No culture war needed. But boomer republicans seem to think capitalism doesn’t involve any of the above.
Yes, inelastic demand is the one you mean!
Inelastic means you want to purchase one daycare slot for your toddler. If the price drops drastically, you don’t want to purchase an additional daycare slot (that would be silly). If the price increases drastically, you’re going to pay it because you’re not willing to sacrifice building a career by stepping off partner-track. No matter what the prices do, perfectly inelastic demand stays constant.
you've posted 14 times in this thread after you said this
your lack of impulse control is even worse than your bootlicking attitude
True, stupid analysis invites rebuttal.
I do love that bootlicking and oligarch have to be top of the list for best words of 2024 though!
'stupid analysis' = regurgitating corporate talking points about why low skilled workers don't deserve dignified lives and families, like they did back when america was great.
if you work for a living, bootlicking and oligarch being the words of 2024 should give you pause for reflection
it's hard to overcome a lifetime of propaganda though
I think I agree with you on an emotional level. If you paid people more, they would be insulated from many of the slings and arrows that we go through in life. Life is easier when you have a cushion of money in the bank to draw on when something unforeseen happens. Ideally, everyone would have that "personal safety-net."
But on another level, I don't think paying people more would really result in people saving a lot of that additional income because:
a) if everyone was earning a lot more, the market would shift to account for that. Inflation results when people can afford to pay more for a limited resource. If everyone in town could afford to buy a $500,000 house, the price of the house would get bid up to $600,000. That is just how pricing works.
b) if people who have little experience making wise financial choices were to suddenly earn twice as much, they would likely spend twice as much and still not have a nest-egg or a robust savings account. If you are the kind of person who would spend $3000 on a spoiler for your car and you suddenly had an extra $1000, you might just get a $4000 car mod. The rest of us would save the $4000 in the first place... People (in a free country) get to make their own financial choices, and sometimes those choices have repercussions.
But I do agree with you and I do think people working full-time should not need to be on food-stamps or get tax-payer funded support. The corporations for whom they are generating immense profits should be covering the costs (in pay!) of their employees needs. That should not be pushed onto the government (i.e. tax-payers) by corporations who are making record profits.
p.s. Follow up question: In your opinion, what percentage of people would, if they earned more money, invest it or use it wisely to stay out of poverty and what percentage would waste it on crap like drugs, tattoos, junk food, booze, dogs, car mods, piercings, "fashion" and or cell phone upgrades?
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
I think I agree with you on an emotional level. If you paid people more, they would be insulated from many of the slings and arrows that we go through in life. Life is easier when you have a cushion of money in the bank to draw on when something unforeseen happens. Ideally, everyone would have that "personal safety-net."
But on another level, I don't think paying people more would really result in people saving a lot of that additional income because:
a) if everyone was earning a lot more, the market would shift to account for that. Inflation results when people can afford to pay more for a limited resource. If everyone in town could afford to buy a $500,000 house, the price of the house would get bid up to $600,000. That is just how pricing works.
b) if people who have little experience making wise financial choices were to suddenly earn twice as much, they would likely spend twice as much and still not have a nest-egg or a robust savings account. If you are the kind of person who would spend $3000 on a spoiler for your car and you suddenly had an extra $1000, you might just get a $4000 car mod. The rest of us would save the $4000 in the first place... People (in a free country) get to make their own financial choices, and sometimes those choices have repercussions.
But I do agree with you and I do think people working full-time should not need to be on food-stamps or get tax-payer funded support. The corporations for whom they are generating immense profits should be covering the costs (in pay!) of their employees needs. That should not be pushed onto the government (i.e. tax-payers) by corporations who are making record profits.
p.s. Follow up question: In your opinion, what percentage of people would, if they earned more money, invest it or use it wisely to stay out of poverty and what percentage would waste it on crap like drugs, tattoos, junk food, booze, dogs, car mods, piercings, "fashion" and or cell phone upgrades?
Housing cost is a factor of interest rates, local zoning/permitting costs, property tax rate, and whether foreigners and corporations can buy. Fix these things and housing will stop being an investment and go back to being a place to live.
Isn’t this classic capitalism? Workers are allowed to ask for more money. They are allowed to stop working if they don’t think they’re paid enough.
Starbucks can make the call if it’s worth paying them more or trying to find new workers who will work for less.
They can probably pass some increased labor costs on to customers but inelasticity of demand for decent coffee isn’t infinite.
The market solves this. No culture war needed. But boomer republicans seem to think capitalism doesn’t involve any of the above.
Yes, inelastic demand is the one you mean!
Inelastic means you want to purchase one daycare slot for your toddler. If the price drops drastically, you don’t want to purchase an additional daycare slot (that would be silly). If the price increases drastically, you’re going to pay it because you’re not willing to sacrifice building a career by stepping off partner-track. No matter what the prices do, perfectly inelastic demand stays constant.
The only thing "inelastic" in that example is the ability of the lawyer to see that hiring people to raise children so that he can make more money to pay them (and perhaps buy some Starbucks along the way) is a symptom of a destructive mindset. Of course when one is committed to a "two income household" due mainly to high taxes, one feels the need to park kids somewhere for most of their waking hours, ideally in some way that confuses them adequately and indoctrinates them into the kind of system into which they've been unceremoniously plunked. Best case is that they spend the following 24 years in and out of institutions that groom them so that one day they have the chance to do the same for their own children. And just like that nobody raises their kids, nobody stays connected to land and family, and dumbasses argue about Starbucks wages on a running website. It happened to me, too.
Yes, functioning markets can easily solve this. However one thing both democrats and republicans agree on is that the market is bad for crony profits. And as a result one can hardly call most of what goes on in the USA these days "capitalism." It is cronyism at best, with all kinds of price controls, wage controls, and artificial barriers to entry. And even that may be a generous description.
The name of the game for large, deep pocketed corporations like Starbucks is to invite wage floors (minimum wage laws) that they can circumvent using automation, but that their mom and pop competition will not be able to circumvent effectively. This is already happening with things like self-checkout stations, and driverless-cars. Just imagine what will happen to the check stand workers when someone tells their employers (without respect to supply and demand) that they now cost 30% more.
No coincidence that the worst bum problems (what some call "homelessness") are in places with high minimum wage. When politicians prohibits folks from making less than $20/hour plus associated payroll taxes and insurances, the biggest effect is locking most folks who generate less than $20/hour (plus taxes etc...) totally out of work. The lowest skilled workers are the first to be priced off the bottom rungs of the proverbial ladder. And it is all by design. Those who make such rules would rather have folks dependent and comfortable, with guaranteed profits for cronies than to allow the existence of real markets that could possibly wind up significantly shifting that status quo or replacing incumbent institutions.
Inelastic means you want to purchase one daycare slot for your toddler. If the price drops drastically, you don’t want to purchase an additional daycare slot (that would be silly). If the price increases drastically, you’re going to pay it because you’re not willing to sacrifice building a career by stepping off partner-track. No matter what the prices do, perfectly inelastic demand stays constant.
The only thing "inelastic" in that example is the ability of the lawyer to see that hiring people to raise children so that he can make more money to pay them (and perhaps buy some Starbucks along the way) is a symptom of a destructive mindset. Of course when one is committed to a "two income household" due mainly to high taxes, one feels the need to park kids somewhere for most of their waking hours, ideally in some way that confuses them adequately and indoctrinates them into the kind of system into which they've been unceremoniously plunked. Best case is that they spend the following 24 years in and out of institutions that groom them so that one day they have the chance to do the same for their own children. And just like that nobody raises their kids, nobody stays connected to land and family, and dumbasses argue about Starbucks wages on a running website. It happened to me, too.
Yes, functioning markets can easily solve this. However one thing both democrats and republicans agree on is that the market is bad for crony profits. And as a result one can hardly call most of what goes on in the USA these days "capitalism." It is cronyism at best, with all kinds of price controls, wage controls, and artificial barriers to entry. And even that may be a generous description.
The name of the game for large, deep pocketed corporations like Starbucks is to invite wage floors (minimum wage laws) that they can circumvent using automation, but that their mom and pop competition will not be able to circumvent effectively. This is already happening with things like self-checkout stations, and driverless-cars. Just imagine what will happen to the check stand workers when someone tells their employers (without respect to supply and demand) that they now cost 30% more.
No coincidence that the worst bum problems (what some call "homelessness") are in places with high minimum wage. When politicians prohibits folks from making less than $20/hour plus associated payroll taxes and insurances, the biggest effect is locking most folks who generate less than $20/hour (plus taxes etc...) totally out of work. The lowest skilled workers are the first to be priced off the bottom rungs of the proverbial ladder. And it is all by design. Those who make such rules would rather have folks dependent and comfortable, with guaranteed profits for cronies than to allow the existence of real markets that could possibly wind up significantly shifting that status quo or replacing incumbent institutions.
A huge chunk of the productivity gains of the last 50 years are from women entering the work force in real jobs.
It’s silly to force half of your human capital to work a small subset of jobs because of their sex.
Nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent, but much of the modern prosperity you enjoy is because we have a much more active workforce than we used to - it’s certainly not a net-negative.
Isn’t this classic capitalism? Workers are allowed to ask for more money. They are allowed to stop working if they don’t think they’re paid enough.
Starbucks can make the call if it’s worth paying them more or trying to find new workers who will work for less.
They can probably pass some increased labor costs on to customers but inelasticity of demand for decent coffee isn’t infinite.
The market solves this. No culture war needed. But boomer republicans seem to think capitalism doesn’t involve any of the above.
Yes, inelastic demand is the one you mean!
Inelastic means you want to purchase one daycare slot for your toddler. If the price drops drastically, you don’t want to purchase an additional daycare slot (that would be silly). If the price increases drastically, you’re going to pay it because you’re not willing to sacrifice building a career by stepping off partner-track. No matter what the prices do, perfectly inelastic demand stays constant.
Do we think all of this unaffordability and angst is all downstream of housing costs? We haven’t built housing in most desirable places for decades and are paying the price now.
No it won't. Stop boot licking these billion dollar corporations. Remember these people don't care if they kill people or if you're living in poverty, if it means making another billion dollars. The only thing giving Starbucks employees a proper wage will do is the fat cats will have to settle down with just one yacht instead of three.
Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, etc. Are highly government subsidized in an obscure way. They pay minimal wages and keep workers below full time thresholds to avoid paying benefits. Then the workers use government assistance to make it: food stamps, subsidized healthcare, rent programs, etc. This costs taxpayers 10s of billions each year.
The cost of the employee is much higher than the companies pay, we just pay the difference allow them take it as corporate profits.
I do love that bootlicking and oligarch have to be top of the list for best words of 2024 though!
'stupid analysis' = regurgitating corporate talking points about why low skilled workers don't deserve dignified lives and families, like they did back when america was great.
if you work for a living, bootlicking and oligarch being the words of 2024 should give you pause for reflection
it's hard to overcome a lifetime of propaganda though
Except nobody ever said low skilled workers don’t deserve respect or an opportunity to make a living. Collective bargaining is necessary in some industries. But schlepping coffee as a 24-year old is not even remotely the same thing as engineering and manufacturing cars or airplanes, digging coal out of mines, going up on construction cranes, even teaching, etc. It’s more akin to bartending and bartenders make a boatload of money at a much lower wage than a typical Starbucks barista. Now, how is that? How should YOU be treating your barista?
By the way, if you want to get back to the great 1950s that you are essentially promoting (you know after WW2 when we rebuilt basically the entire world and a manufacturing dynasty), then you should love Trump and his economic nationalism and populism. You should want to completely undo the globally integrated economy and bring all manufacturing back to America. All of it. Only American chip fabs. Only American produced pharmaceuticals, no generics. Only American cars with all parts produced in America.
Moreover, if you really wanted the small mom & pop service oriented companies, like locally owned coffee shops, then you would’ve voted for the completely opposite policies we enacted during COVID where we destroyed 50% of small business but further buttressed the Targets, Amazons, and Starbucks of the country.
Here is the actual Starbucks income statement for those of us who don’t live in the fairy tale.
In Newname’s pollyannish fictional version of the world (where he also ignores tips) he would redistribute 200% of net income to SG&A (a little to COGS but mostly SG&A). Nevermind that it doesn’t exist. Nevermind that if you significantly whack the shareholders, they will stop infusing capital into your company, they will do the opposite. Instead of growing and investing more into the product, Starbucks will be forced to actually stop operating some locations.
But, let’s get realistic and only redistribute 25% of it (it will still crimp operations, but for imagination’s sake, let’s do it). You might achieve a $2 per hour raise. Cool. We can also take all of the big, bad, evil Howard Schulz’s ownership, after tax of course after we confiscate all of his equity and sell it and get these 24-year old newbies working 30 hours per week another maybe $3 per hour. Maybe. But only for the year. After 2025, there’s no more Schulz money to distribute.
It’s really fun to just have graduated college and wax poetic about concepts you just learned like supply and demand curves, oligarchs and bootlickers, etc with absolutely zero concept of reality and no practical experience starting or running a business. Which describes you. Sorry if that offends you in some way and you just can’t help resisting the urge to keep “maligning the man” instead of simply admitting that you are just absolutely clueless.
Happy Hanukkah everyone. I’m going to go go get a coffee at the locally owned small coffee shop and float the baristas a $100. Anywhere but Starbucks.
The thing I keep wondering to myself as I read through this thread is, whether people look down on ppl employed in coffee shops because that is a low-status occupation?
Someone mentioned bartenders, how nobody stiffs the bartender who makes your manhattan. It is such a similar job, but considered higher in status.
Anyways, to the extent that Americans look down on Starbucks employees purely because they are in a low-status occupation, that rubs me funny. And people who are higher status — whether deserved or undeserved — it just doesn’t seem like they get held to the same standards. (I think a lot more is forgiven if someone has high status.)
The person in a low-status job seems to get looked down on, even if intelligent. Or, even if they have a good work ethic. Or, even when they scrimp and save.
Not sure why, but I think Americans are particularly bad with this (loving ppl driving nice cars, not caring if they are white collar criminals, not caring if they are bad fathers) and casting a harsh eye on people who work at Home Depot or their winter jacket is ten years old.
'stupid analysis' = regurgitating corporate talking points about why low skilled workers don't deserve dignified lives and families, like they did back when america was great.
if you work for a living, bootlicking and oligarch being the words of 2024 should give you pause for reflection
it's hard to overcome a lifetime of propaganda though
Except nobody ever said low skilled workers don’t deserve respect or an opportunity to make a living. Collective bargaining is necessary in some industries. But schlepping coffee as a 24-year old is not even remotely the same thing as engineering and manufacturing cars or airplanes, digging coal out of mines, going up on construction cranes, even teaching, etc. It’s more akin to bartending and bartenders make a boatload of money at a much lower wage than a typical Starbucks barista. Now, how is that? How should YOU be treating your barista?
By the way, if you want to get back to the great 1950s that you are essentially promoting (you know after WW2 when we rebuilt basically the entire world and a manufacturing dynasty), then you should love Trump and his economic nationalism and populism. You should want to completely undo the globally integrated economy and bring all manufacturing back to America. All of it. Only American chip fabs. Only American produced pharmaceuticals, no generics. Only American cars with all parts produced in America.
Moreover, if you really wanted the small mom & pop service oriented companies, like locally owned coffee shops, then you would’ve voted for the completely opposite policies we enacted during COVID where we destroyed 50% of small business but further buttressed the Targets, Amazons, and Starbucks of the country.
Here is the actual Starbucks income statement for those of us who don’t live in the fairy tale.
In Newname’s pollyannish fictional version of the world (where he also ignores tips) he would redistribute 200% of net income to SG&A (a little to COGS but mostly SG&A). Nevermind that it doesn’t exist. Nevermind that if you significantly whack the shareholders, they will stop infusing capital into your company, they will do the opposite. Instead of growing and investing more into the product, Starbucks will be forced to actually stop operating some locations.
But, let’s get realistic and only redistribute 25% of it (it will still crimp operations, but for imagination’s sake, let’s do it). You might achieve a $2 per hour raise. Cool. We can also take all of the big, bad, evil Howard Schulz’s ownership, after tax of course after we confiscate all of his equity and sell it and get these 24-year old newbies working 30 hours per week another maybe $3 per hour. Maybe. But only for the year. After 2025, there’s no more Schulz money to distribute.
It’s really fun to just have graduated college and wax poetic about concepts you just learned like supply and demand curves, oligarchs and bootlickers, etc with absolutely zero concept of reality and no practical experience starting or running a business. Which describes you. Sorry if that offends you in some way and you just can’t help resisting the urge to keep “maligning the man” instead of simply admitting that you are just absolutely clueless.
Happy Hanukkah everyone. I’m going to go go get a coffee at the locally owned small coffee shop and float the baristas a $100. Anywhere but Starbucks.
How can you ban collective bargaining under a capitalist economy? Freedom of association is one of the basic rights.
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