Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Testify wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
because they work for the govenrment and get paid by the taxpayers. if even FDR was against it then there's something wrong with the idea.

So anyone who's an employee of the state is not entitled to any workplace rights whatsoever? Then no one would ever work for the state.

They had a slew of workplace rights before and will after. Hell a government job and its benefits is an adjudicable legal right that non public employees don't have.

Testify wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Testify wrote:What evidence do you have that ALL of the women doing those jobs are of equal merit to men?
That's an average, so some will be better, some will be worse.

What evidence do you have that women, on average, do jobs of less merit than men?

None.

Well I have evidence that they're paid 15% less...people who're paid less are probably doing a worse job.
People don't get paid according to how much their bosses like them.

Not only is that sexist, but it shows you have little to no grasp on how economics works or gender issues.

Am i the only person who's chowder's new avatar just messes up the screen? Any way to reduce that?

Monster Rain wrote:

dajobe wrote:Coal Miners Unions are like the Grey Knights of unions...

Nah, surely the Teamsters are the GKs of unions.

maybe, but surely they are SW or BA, but it is true that Teamsters are another union that is famous for how much sway it holds

Hell, if compensation is the only indicator of value, then the Polio vaccine was utterly worthless (Jonas Salk, the scientist who developed it, shared it with the entire world free of charge).

Monster Rain wrote:

dajobe wrote:Coal Miners Unions are like the Grey Knights of unions...

Nah, surely the Teamsters are the GKs of unions.

Not really. The GK book doesn't have obvious glaring weaknesses. Teamsters are frequently weak in many areas, national only has power because of the numbers they can claim to bring to bear. Teamsters was so bad at my Dad's shop they voted them out, getting 90% of a shop to vote out a well known union is no small feat. Apparently its been happening a lot of places.

Melissia wrote:By that reasoning, the reason that we kept blacks as slaves is because blacks aren't good at anything other than slave labor.

IE, it's stupid reasoning, because payment rendered is not an actual indication of the value of one's contributions.

In a free market economy it is.
Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive. You can argue for or against redistributive taxation on top of that, but if you're being paid less there's probably a reason for it.

Frazzled wrote:
They had a slew of workplace rights before and will after. Hell a government job and its benefits is an adjudicable legal right that non public employees don't have.

Right, and unions enforce those rights in the workplace.
Without a union, it's entirely possible (and this DOES happen) for your boss to ask you to break the law, or breach your contract, or act unethically. Without the legal help from a union, it's do as your bosses say or get the sack.
In my old workplace at a warehouse, I seriously doubt health and safety would have been so stringently enforced were it not for a strong union presence.

Testify wrote:
Right, and unions enforce those rights in the workplace.
Without a union, it's entirely possible (and this DOES happen) for your boss to ask you to break the law, or breach your contract, or act unethically. Without the legal help from a union, it's do as your bosses say or get the sack.
In my old workplace at a warehouse, I seriously doubt health and safety would have been so stringently enforced were it not for a strong union presence.

Bull gak, utter and complete bull gak. We are talking about public employees. If they are asked to break the law or act unethically they are protected by the Whistleblowers Act and REQUIRED TO report it. The governments treatment of public workers is in the public eye constantly, they do not require the protection of Unions. In this day and age youtube and the media are better advocates.

Testify wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
They had a slew of workplace rights before and will after. Hell a government job and its benefits is an adjudicable legal right that non public employees don't have.

Right, and unions enforce those rights in the workplace.
Without a union, it's entirely possible (and this DOES happen) for your boss to ask you to break the law, or breach your contract, or act unethically. Without the legal help from a union, it's do as your bosses say or get the sack.
In my old workplace at a warehouse, I seriously doubt health and safety would have been so stringently enforced were it not for a strong union presence.

Not even going to touch your first point with a 10' pole...

As to the second, there are a variety of non-union methods for dealing with both circumstances you describe.

For instance, I'm a non-union employee, working as a contractor to the Department of Justice. I'm not a government employee, mind, so I don't get any of their 'perks' or anything (I use that term loosely, mind). If my boss asked me to do something illegal, breach my contract or act unethically, there are hotlines I can use to report him. If he tries to fire me, there are documented policies on how and why that can happen. If he fires me for not doing something illegal, I can sue the crap outta the company for wrongful firing. If he's dumb enough to actually use email to ask, well, then there's really not much else I need to do.

And I worked in a warehouse also. If your workplace environment isn't up to snuff, or you feel it's not safe, you can go to OSHA, who are usually happy to send someone to check it out. I've found most companies, however, are quite happy to stick to safety standards, as it reduces the chances of them losing their pants in a lawsuit.

Testify wrote:In a free market economy it is.

A real "free market economy" does not exist, and has never existed, and will never exist.

We certainly don't have one now.

Testify wrote:Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive.

Cleaners are far more productive than Bankers are, and their production is far more valuable to society than that of Bankers. That the value is not compensated as much doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Testify wrote:but if you're being paid less there's probably a reason for it.

Bigotry, misogynism, tradition, idiocy on the part of the employer, stupidity on the part of our culture, and other such wonderful reasons.

Testify wrote:

Melissia wrote:By that reasoning, the reason that we kept blacks as slaves is because blacks aren't good at anything other than slave labor.

IE, it's stupid reasoning, because payment rendered is not an actual indication of the value of one's contributions.

In a free market economy it is.
Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive. You can argue for or against redistributive taxation on top of that, but if you're being paid less there's probably a reason for it.

Ahh, so having a trust fund in dividend giving investments and living off of monthly checks while playing Halo and sleeping all day makes your contribution worth more than a Soldiers because of the monetary evaluation of your income level. Brilliant. That is the smartest thing I have ever heard. Wealth is a direct result of the value of effort and all forms of paying work are equally legitimate in a function based on their compensation. I should go deal drugs, I'll be worth something to society. I'd better watch out though, I might have to work at a sweatshop and then I'd be unproductive aaaaaand poor.

Melissia wrote:

Testify wrote:In a free market economy it is.

A real "free market economy" does not exist, and has never existed, and will never exist.

We certainly don't have one now.

Testify wrote:Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive.

Cleaners are far more productive than Bankers are, and their production is far more valuable to society than that of Bankers. That the value is not compensated as much doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Testify wrote:but if you're being paid less there's probably a reason for it.

Bigotry, misogynism, tradition, idiocy on the part of the employer, stupidity on the part of our culture, and other such wonderful reasons.

I see Melissia is the authority on value...why?

Frazzled wrote:I see Melissia is the authority on value...why?

And you want to claim that the free market is an authority on value?

How can something that doesn't exist be an authority on anything?

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I see Melissia is the authority on value...why?

And you want to claim that the free market is an authority on value?

How can something that doesn't exist be an authority on anything?

Answer the question. How are you the authority on value?

In this instance. Cleaners require no advanced skillset. Capital outlay is moderate. Their product would not be considered a necessity. PLus they are evil according to tree huggers because they are inherently harmful to the environment.

Melissia wrote:

Testify wrote:Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive.

Cleaners are far more productive than Bankers are, and their production is far more valuable to society than that of Bankers. That the value is not compensated as much doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Either you dont know what bankers do, or you are letting your dislike of money making capitalists cloud your reasoning. Without banking we would all have mattresses full of cash. Companies would not exist on the scale they do and we could not live at our current standard because banks finance many companies in the US and across the world. So while cleaners may provide a physical service, bankers do more for your everyday life even if they are sometimes "evil"

also, the reason some people get paid more than soldiers, is because of the education and qualifications required to do the higher paying jobs, while many lower jobs can be completed with less training and education, thus they are paid less unless there are other factors such as danger or something that will result in a pay increase, I am not insulting soldiers or other lower paying jobs, just saying why some jobs that you "sit around all day" pay more

Besides without bankers, most cleaners wouldn't exist.

dajobe wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Testify wrote:Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive.

Cleaners are far more productive than Bankers are, and their production is far more valuable to society than that of Bankers. That the value is not compensated as much doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Either you dont know what bankers do, or you are letting your dislike of money making capitalists cloud your reasoning. Without banking we would all have mattresses full of cash. Companies would not exist on the scale they do and we could not live at our current standard because banks finance many companies in the US and across the world. So while cleaners may provide a physical service, bankers do more for your everyday life even if they are sometimes "evil"

also, the reason some people get paid more than soldiers, is because of the education and qualifications required to do the higher paying jobs, while many lower jobs can be completed with less training and education, thus they are paid less unless there are other factors such as danger or something that will result in a pay increase, I am not insulting soldiers or other lower paying jobs, just saying why some jobs that you "sit around all day" pay more

That doesn't actually explain the degree in differentiation in personal recompense between someone like a soldier and someone like a hedge fund general manager. The general manager will, in theory, have more training. The difference in personal worth via experiential learning however is not a multiple in the tens of thousands like pay scale might suggest. The financial sectors capacity for aggregating wealth towards it's upper management without the accompanying increase in personal productivity or worth inherent to the individual being compensated has been visible for thousands of years. Pay scales and worth are not intrinsically linked, especially in a truly "free market" where non capitalist pressures can and 100% of the time will make the system inefficienct and corrupt. It's childish to think that the most pure and basic idea of capitalism, that being that the true market value of effort will be rewarded in line with that worth is truth. It's not. There are entire industries that are worthless to society (such as hedge funds investing in commodities) and others that are actively harmful in modern times (oil, food speculation), but due to the vagueries of financial law create incredible blossoms of wealth for a select few.

I am not going to argue, that some people do earn kind of ridiculous amounts of money, but that is their right to use their talents and acrue as much wealth as possible and i seriously doubt that a majority of the population could successfully be a hedge fund general manager.

I dont really feel that any industry is worthless though, even if they dont provide a physical service, they are still increasing the flow of capital in the nation and that money is spent in the system in one way or another thus contributing. and while the oil industy's practices may be questionable at times, they are providing a necessary good in todays society, and while we shouldnt(and cant) stay on oil forever, it is necessary at the moment

and no system is perfect, there will always be those who use and abuse the system to gain an advantage, that is human nature, whether it is capitalism, communism, socialism or whatever -ism you prefer

I dont really feel that any industry is worthless though, even if they dont provide a physical service, they are still increasing the flow of capital in the nation and that money is spent in the system in one way or another thus contributing.

Speculation doesn't increase the flow of capitol in many cases, it just redirects it. That's the problem with many of the industries under the umbrella of "international finance" in modern times. They don't produce, they simply rearrange. Financial services can be and and always have been very important, but the modern financial infrastructure is no longer based in directing the flow of any given nations citizen capitol towards mutually equitable ends. The finance sector exists to fund itself, and it's doing so to the point of being dystopian fiction.

and while the oil industy's practices may be questionable at times, they are providing a necessary good in todays society, and while we shouldnt(and cant) stay on oil forever, it is necessary at the moment

The oil industry is typically not speculating itself though it's benefited by speculation in my cases financially. Oil speculators exist in the financial sectors (mainly commodities investment) and are siphons on the oil sectors productivity and the efficiency of gasoline infrastructures in markets as a whole. They are detrimental to global economics at this point. The same can be said of food speculators. Given that the primary source of speculation are massive banking corporations it can be argued that the sector as a whole no longer has the health of the global economy in it's hive-mind. Given that it all but caused the last global crash (and that the total lost value of that crash is astronomically above the total value of these institutions) it should be plentifully obvious that the actual aggregate worth of many working in the banking industry is a vast negative to the market value of the global economy which would imply that they should be paid less then nothing.

Pretending that evaluation of pay is based on the loosely defined concept of "market worth" is silly.

and no system is perfect, there will always be those who use and abuse the system to gain an advantage, that is human nature, whether it is capitalism, communism, socialism or whatever -ism you prefer

Yes. My problem is with people who misidentify the culprits and decide to whine about firefighters.

Frazzled wrote:Answer the question. How are you the authority on value?

Because I exist and make value based decisions.

dajobe wrote:Either you dont know what bankers do

I understand what they do.

Bankers, effectively, produce nothing. They instead manipulate money in order to make more money for themselves and their clients. While bankers were the precursors to investors, they are not universally investors in the traditional sense (see: Angel Investors for a good concept example). Many of them are, but banking itself is not a requirement for it. That's like saying that torturers are a noble profession because they helped lead the way to a proper criminal justice system.

A lot of jobs that pay more don't pay more for any logical reason. Sports stars and actors, for example. Yes, I know why they make ludicrous amounts of money. But they ultimately produce nothing of any real value-- a minor distraction perhaps, but that's about it-- and yet those who provide services without which society would completely fall apart are paid very little. And how DARE these people try to unionize to get better compensation!

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Answer the question. How are you the authority on value?

Because I exist and make value based decisions.

dajobe wrote:Either you dont know what bankers do

I understand what they do.

Bankers, effectively, produce nothing. They instead manipulate money in order to make more money for themselves and their clients. While bankers were the precursors to investors, they are not universally investors in the traditional sense (see: Angel Investors for a good concept example). Many of them are, but banking itself is not a requirement for it. That's like saying that torturers are a noble profession because they helped lead the way to a proper criminal justice system.

A lot of jobs that pay more don't pay more for any logical reason. Sports stars and actors, for example. Yes, I know why they make ludicrous amounts of money. But they ultimately produce nothing of any real value-- a minor distraction perhaps, but that's about it-- and yet those who provide services without which society would completely fall apart are paid very little. And how DARE these people try to unionize to get better compensation!

Odds are, using banker as you define it as general "evil money guy":
The place you live in was financed by an evil banker.
The food you eat came from a farm with loans financed by an evil banker.
The computer you're using was built in a place acquired by loans from an evil banker and using vendor financing for the materials.
The electricity you're using came from a company using debt financed by an evil banker.


Evil Bankers. We're in your face, touching your minis!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Answer the question. How are you the authority on value?

Because I exist and make value based decisions.

dajobe wrote:Either you dont know what bankers do

I understand what they do.

Bankers, effectively, produce nothing. They instead manipulate money in order to make more money for themselves and their clients. While bankers were the precursors to investors, they are not universally investors in the traditional sense (see: Angel Investors for a good concept example). Many of them are, but banking itself is not a requirement for it. That's like saying that torturers are a noble profession because they helped lead the way to a proper criminal justice system.

A lot of jobs that pay more don't pay more for any logical reason. Sports stars and actors, for example. Yes, I know why they make ludicrous amounts of money. But they ultimately produce nothing of any real value-- a minor distraction perhaps, but that's about it-- and yet those who provide services without which society would completely fall apart are paid very little. And how DARE these people try to unionize to get better compensation!

Define "real" value?

Odds are, using banker as you define it as general "evil money guy":

Stop making gak up and claiming I said it. Thank you.

Money changer.

Jesus may have said something of.

Not that it matters.

Melissia wrote:

Odds are, using banker as you define it as general "evil money guy":

Stop making gak up and claiming I said it. Thank you.

Just going by your historical usage of the term, thank you.

dogma wrote:Money changer.

Jesus may have said something of.

Not that it matters.

So did ancient China-- they were the lowest class of citizens, below even peasant farmers in terms of how they were viewed by the culture.

dogma wrote:Money changer.

Jesus may have said something of.

Not that it matters.

I didn't know Dogma used religious arguments now...how Christian of you Dogma.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

dogma wrote:Money changer.

Jesus may have said something of.

Not that it matters.

So did ancient China-- they were the lowest class of citizens, below even peasant farmers in terms of how they were viewed by the culture.

Tell me, how did their economy do?

Frazzled wrote:
I didn't know Dogma used religious arguments now...how Christian of you Dogma.

Your mistake is assuming I'm offended by the concept.

I use good arguments, and poking at the thing people hold dear is entailed by those.

Tell me, how did their economy do?

China had the largest economy on the planet several times in earths history. It really depends on what time period ancient china is in.

My mother works as a teacher in a public school in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States of America. She makes about $40,000 a year. And she has a master degree, no benefits, and she hasn't gotten a raise in four years. She practically works 18 hours a day, six days a week, and then deals with all the snobbish parents asking her why their children didn't do their homework.

The argument about public employees is one of the dumbest ones in current US politics, because barring federal employees, the pay range is so spread that making any definitive statement about them is inherently a half-truth. Hell people were complaining when they heard the CEO of USPS is paid $300,000 a year. He's the head of USPS people, you know how much the CEO's at UPS and FedEx are making (and they have better benefits too!)?

In a free market economy it is.
Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive

Obviously your teachers didn't do a very good job teaching you, or you didn't pay attention. Productivity has nothing to do with how anyone is paid. Teachers probably do more work than most professions, and they're paid less because they aren't valued by society as highly as say, a software engineer. What someone is paid has nothing to do with the quality of their work, how much of it to do, or any sensible standard of measurement. Its based on the subjective perception of how valuable their job is. It doesn't help that in the current US market, teachers tend to be a dime a dozen.

LordofHats wrote:My mother works as a teacher in a public school in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States of America. She makes about $40,000 a year. And she has a master degree, no benefits, and she hasn't gotten a raise in four years. She practically works 18 hours a day, six days a week, and then deals with all the snobbish parents asking her why their children didn't do their homework.

The argument about public employees is one of the dumbest ones in current US politics, because barring federal employees, the pay range is so spread that making any definitive statement about them is inherently a half-truth. Hell people were complaining when they heard the CEO of USPS is paid $300,000 a year. He's the head of USPS people, you know how much the CEO's at UPS and FedEx are making (and they have better benefits too!)?

In a free market economy it is.
Cleaners are paid less than bankers because they are less productive

Obviously your teachers didn't do a very good job teaching you, or you didn't pay attention. Productivity has nothing to do with how anyone is paid. Teachers probably do more work than most professions, and they're paid less because they aren't valued by society as highly as say, a software engineer. What someone is paid has nothing to do with the quality of their work, how much of it to do, or any sensible standard of measurement. Its based on the subjective perception of how valuable their job is. It doesn't help that in the current US market, teachers tend to be a dime a dozen.

Why doesn't she quit and do something else?