Religion, Science, Scepticism, Philosophy and things metaphysical

[Value Collector]

Creating a fair global taxation system is something that needs to be done.

People always talk about multinational companies skipping tax etc, which offcourse happens, but in their defence, a certain amount of dodging has to be done just to avoid the cumulative effect of double or triple taxation as money is moved around, they will try and limit it to one taxation destination if the can, and offcourse that will be the lowest.

 

[cynic]

Well it comes down to your moral system.

You are a CEO of a company. You have 10 loyal and productive workers that you can replace with one machine.

Do you have a moral responsibility to them ?

It seems my earlier responses to this hypothetical may have been unjust.

New information, complete with a thoroughly detailed assessment of our current trajectory into the future, has just come to hand via the Lofty vision of the Oracles of Conchordia:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QWDjLrIDLx4

 

[SirRumpole]

It should fall back on society in general to look after people who are unemployable, why should it be a single companies problem? Hence the reason I said we need social safety nets.

Maybe people are "unemployable" because they worked their whole lives loyally for one company and have not acquired wider skills.

For a company to say tough luck mate thanks but no thanks to you any more is morally reprehensible as far as I'm concerned.

And maybe managers who complain about high staff turnover and no company loyalty are the ones only too willing to throw employees on the scrapheap when it suits them.


But it's been interesting to see how some people's so called morals crumble when making money is concerned.

 

[Tisme]

Maybe people are "unemployable" because they worked their whole lives loyally for one company and have not acquired wider skills.

For a company to say tough luck mate thanks but no thanks to you any more is morally reprehensible as far as I'm concerned.

And maybe managers who complain about high staff turnover and no company loyalty are the ones only too willing to throw employees on the scrapheap when it suits them.


But it's been interesting to see how some people's so called morals crumble when making money is concerned.

Of course the lack of loyalty to employees is a hallmark of Marxism. If Generals ran the defence force like that we would be vulnerable to the yellow peril and beyond.

 

[luutzu]

I always thought their long game was survival. Squeeze as many golden eggs as possible without crippling or killing the geese laying them.

Failure to strike the correct balance, potentially condemns both the geese and their corporate farmers to a fate worse than Hades!

Another pearl of wisdom, proudly brought to you by your faithful matrix monk.

Ummmm... true only if the company is small and mainly localised within national borders.

Let them rip across borders, which is the move these days with them free trade agreements and gov't drive to be "competitive"... and corporations have unlimited number of geese to pull eggs out off, then plug the feathers, then skinned, then gutted, then have the carcass sold, then have the two feet dipped in some sauce, steamed and sold for a buck each!

Some economist wrote a book about Capitalists killing the host. Much like Agent Smith telling Neo that humans are like a virus, move from one host to another until no more hosts.

 

[Value Collector]

Maybe people are "unemployable" because they worked their whole lives loyally for one company and have not acquired wider skills.

For a company to say tough luck mate thanks but no thanks to you any more is morally reprehensible as far as I'm concerned.

And maybe managers who complain about high staff turnover and no company loyalty are the ones only too willing to throw employees on the scrapheap when it suits them.


But it's been interesting to see how some people's so called morals crumble when making money is concerned.

If they worked their "whole life" with one company under today's system they should have a decent super account and had plenty of time to generate other investments etc, regardless on how loyal you feel to a company, you should always be looking out for your own future to, I mean companies go bankrupt, industries die etc.

To say you are only going to have one job at one company is pretty crazy, also I think being unemployable is a bit of a choice in most cases.

As I said though, if we are talking about people being replaced by machines, it will happen pretty slowly and probably wouldn't require that people get fired, just shuffled around and those at retirement age retired.

 

[luutzu]

Creating a fair global taxation system is something that needs to be done.

People always talk about multinational companies skipping tax etc, which offcourse happens, but in their defence, a certain amount of dodging has to be done just to avoid the cumulative effect of double or triple taxation as money is moved around, they will try and limit it to one taxation destination if the can, and offcourse that will be the lowest.

That's being very generous there VC.

How do you explain GE paying zero income tax for at least the past decade? Or News Corp.?

List goes on. In most cases, the gov't actually have to pay these corporations a tax return.

A recent TED talk by Yanus Varoufukus [that former Greek finance minister]... where he said there's now a mountain of debt in the world, and next to it a mountain of cash. The two does not mix together or hang out at the same party.

That is, corporations have so much cash now they don't know what to do with it - because the demand isn't there for them to invest much of it at all. So they're playing financial games to bring up the figures... not much real investments are being made into productive work that employ people.

Maybe a death spiral until WW3 breaks out on all fronts.

 

[SirRumpole]

If they worked their "whole life" with one company under today's system they should have a decent super account and had plenty of time to generate other investments etc, regardless on how loyal you feel to a company, you should always be looking out for your own future to, I mean companies go bankrupt, industries die etc.

Their whole "working" life which might mean they get made redundant at 45.

Not much chance of getting another job then, and most people aren't financial whizzes like you, they are too busy working for a living.

 

[Value Collector]

Their whole "working" life which might mean they get made redundant at 45.

Not much chance of getting another job then, and most people aren't financial whizzes like you, they are too busy working for a living.

If you consider yourself unemployable at 45, you are being pretty slack in my mind.

I don't really care how busy you are, you need to set aside a little bit of time and money to look after your self financially in the future. A company can only do so much, what are you expecting them to do, provide lifetime pensions for people?

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When it comes to cost cutting, the saying is " Costs are like finger nails, they grow everyday without you noticing, so you have to keep cutting them" and that's not immorral it's necessary, it there is a way for a company to lower its costs and make the organisation stronger and its products cheaper, it's actually a really bad thing to avoid doing that just so you don't have to retire a few staff.

 

[Value Collector]

That's being very generous there VC.

How do you explain GE paying zero income tax for at least the past decade? Or News Corp.?

List goes on. In most cases, the gov't actually have to pay these corporations a tax return.

A recent TED talk by Yanus Varoufukus [that former Greek finance minister]... where he said there's now a mountain of debt in the world, and next to it a mountain of cash. The two does not mix together or hang out at the same party.

That is, corporations have so much cash now they don't know what to do with it - because the demand isn't there for them to invest much of it at all. So they're playing financial games to bring up the figures... not much real investments are being made into productive work that employ people.

Maybe a death spiral until WW3 breaks out on all fronts.

I don't know the details of GE or News Corp.

I don't agree that investments aren't being made, everywhere I look I see companies making real investments, and spending millions growing their businesses, maybe you are looking at the wrong companies, lol.

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I think you are far to negative mate, how do you even make investments?

Have a Coke, listen to a Disney tune, find value and invest, the sun is shining and people are spending money everyday and companies are providing more and more goods and services, I don't have time for negativity, there is to much money to be made by looking at the bright side (which is the biggest side imo)

Here is your Disney tune for the day. this should put you in the right mind frame.

 

[SirRumpole]

If you consider yourself unemployable at 45, you are being pretty slack in my mind.

I don't really care how busy you are, you need to set aside a little bit of time and money to look after your self financially in the future. A company can only do so much, what are you expecting them to do, provide lifetime pensions for people?

Nope , just simple recognition of their value, experience and corporate knowledge.

Internal training schemes, job advancement within the company, personal development, it all helps breed a corporate culture that will encourage employee company loyalty and increase productivity.

If you can't recognise that good people with experience are essential for a good company performance then you would be a lousy manager as well as a moral hypocrite.

 

[luutzu]

I don't know the details of GE or News Corp.

I don't agree that investments aren't being made, everywhere I look I see companies making real investments, and spending millions growing their businesses, maybe you are looking at the wrong companies, lol.

Not real investment, more like maintenance expenditure. To maintain their market position.

I've heard from a few economists now, saying that in general most corporations spend the vast majority of their capital towards share buybacks and other financial games to bring EPS up.

That TED lecture, Yanus gave a figure of, I think, some $4T being "invested" but there's some $13T of cash just sitting around in some tax haven.

But there's a practically zero-cost innovation that could save the world hundreds of billions a year: Simply make all mobile phones voice protocol over internet.

People can just buy a $30 internet service with their phone, can make as much calls as they like through the internet.


If corporations are innovative and driven to save consumer money, that's what they would do. Since that ain't happening, maybe it's the profit over everyone else, I rub your back you rub mind and we screw the consumer mentality at work.

 

[Value Collector]

Nope , just simple recognition of their value, experience and corporate knowledge.

Internal training schemes, job advancement within the company, personal development, it all helps breed a corporate culture that will encourage employee company loyalty and increase productivity.

If you can't recognise that good people with experience are essential for a good company performance then you would be a lousy manager as well as a moral hypocrite.

I am obviously not against any of that.

I am talking about cutting Fat from an organisation that has grown inefficient , offcourse you don't want to cut muscle.

Remember we are talking about automation slowly taking over labour intensive jobs, eg a pallet loading machine taking the jobs of 30 guys who used to hand pack and wrap pallets, I don't know anyone who would want to work for 30+ years packing pallets.

 

[Tisme]

Religion, Science, Scepticism, Philosophy and things metaphysical

 

[luutzu]

I don't know the details of GE or News Corp.

I don't agree that investments aren't being made, everywhere I look I see companies making real investments, and spending millions growing their businesses, maybe you are looking at the wrong companies, lol.

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I think you are far to negative mate, how do you even make investments?

Have a Coke, listen to a Disney tune, find value and invest, the sun is shining and people are spending money everyday and companies are providing more and more goods and services, I don't have time for negativity, there is to much money to be made by looking at the bright side (which is the biggest side imo)

Here is your Disney tune for the day. this should put you in the right mind frame.

I think having a nose for BS and a fast decaying morality will serve me well as a capitalist

There's no need to drink the cool-aid when you can just make money from it. Dam, this condition is worst than I thought.

Serious though, it may make us better investors if we see things for how it is, not how the PR machine want us to believe. Watch and listen to critics, they paint a more realistic picture than any annual report ever could.

We all believe in corporation only surviving if it create real value, are fair and reasonable to its employees... I think that helps a great deal to avoid the big and bad corporations, direct us toward ones that are more innovative and fair dealing.

Good for the investment return and good for the world.

 

[luutzu]

Religion, Science, Scepticism, Philosophy and things metaphysical

Religion: Capitalism, Socialism.
Science: profit, innovation, efficiency.
Scepticism: exploitation, monopoly, slavery.
Philosophy: thinking about these stuff?
Metaphysical: Money, is it real and can it buy you your soul.

See, right on topics.

 

[Value Collector]

Not real investment, more like maintenance expenditure. To maintain their market position.

I've heard from a few economists now, saying that in general most corporations spend the vast majority of their capital towards share buybacks and other financial games to bring EPS up.

.

I don't know what companies you look at, But I see plenty of companies expanding capacity, Look at Disney for example (while they are on my mind) They are opening Shanghai Disney in a few weeks, that's a $5Billion investment when you include the hotels and shopping district, there is also capacity expansions happening at their other parks, eg star wars land for instance, and expansions at animal kindom, their movie studios are making more high budget films than they ever have, and collecting more revenue than ever, they just started building 2 more Disney crusie ships, bringing their fleet to 6 ships once they are completed, and many more smaller things eg hotels and restaurant expansions etc.

Offcourse they are buying back stock too, but that's not bad, Buy backs are just a way to return capital back to investors so they can redeploy it into other areas.

I think stock buy backs are a good way to reduce a companies cash pile, a mature company like Disney will produce more cash than they can invest intelligently, so buying back stock returns it to investors who can redeploy it in other areas into un related companies.

 

[Value Collector]

I think having a nose for BS and a fast decaying morality will serve me well as a capitalist

.

I didn't make my way to financial independence by being gullible, But you have to see the positives that are clearly there, don't fool yourself, know the difference between being skeptical and being cynical.

Skepticism is a great tool, to much cynicism is lead in the saddle bags.

Serious though, it may make us better investors if we see things for how it is, not how the PR machine want us to believe. Watch and listen to critics, they paint a more realistic picture than any annual report ever could.

yes listen to critics, not cynics. The sky is always falling to a cynic.

Look at Warren Buffet, he is very skeptical, cares about the facts, but he is not a perpetual cynic, he can see the bright side of things, and invests with a positive attitude even during the darkest days.

Keep in mind I am not saying be a Pollyanna, but just don't be chicken little, or the fox will eat you.

We all believe in corporation only surviving if it create real value, are fair and reasonable to its employees... I think that helps a great deal to avoid the big and bad corporations, direct us toward ones that are more innovative and fair dealing.

Good for the investment return and good for the world

Plenty of them out there if you can see the wood for the trees.

 

[SirRumpole]

I am obviously not against any of that.

I am talking about cutting Fat from an organisation that has grown inefficient , offcourse you don't want to cut muscle.

It's up to the managers to make sure the organisation doesn't get fat by doing the things I mentioned in my previous post.

 

[Value Collector]

It's up to the managers to make sure the organisation doesn't get fat by doing the things I mentioned in my previous post.

Yep, but just like people, some companies look down one day and relies they let themselves go, and need to get back into shape or they have a heart attack and realise they aren't going to survive on their current diet.