Confessions of a Welfare Queen

[stormbind]

What makes you think I don't know what makes a good manager? I have probably held more management positions than you think.

Not every company has shareholders, and they very rarely have any idea of how to run a business.

You cannot just fire an engineer. Your reputation as an employer is very important and valuable, and there are also worker rights/protection laws that prevent unreasonable sacking. Not being good at a job is not considered a sackable offense.

When does a shop floor engineer get the oportunity to demonstrate management skills?

And besides that, your assumption is simply not true. Good engineers, statistically, are less likely to recieve reward because there is no profit in rewarding someone who is already in a highly profitable position.

That is not to say they cannot recieve reward, just that there is little or no incentive for the company to give one.

 

[carlosMM]

Originally posted by Stapel


First of all: Securing markets is not per se a good thing. The 'internet bubble' is a fine example.

Most managers do fine. But that is not the point. If I start a comapny and want to hire a poor manager for a million a year, that is MY business. Nobody should interfer with it.

ahem, the internet hype was a good example of people abusing the stockmarket by pretending to have huge markets to gain high stock values...... exactly what I critizise all the time

interestingly, you always defend the people who pay the managers - but fail to realize that Mr Bigshot decides his OWN salary.... without every being resonsible when he has failed.
examples?
Ron Sommer, for one?
or all the Mannesmann Mobilfunk bigshots?
or the Bahn managers?
or Schrempp?

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by stormbind
What makes you think I don't know what makes a good manager? I have probably held more management positions than you think.

What I mean: By no means should you decide or influence who is the best manager for a company you don't work for.

Not every company has shareholders, and they very rarely have any idea of how to run a business.

Every company has shareholders. A best they are called owners. Whether the owners/shareholders know how to run a business is 100% irrelevant. They own the place: they decide.

You cannot just fire an engineer. Your reputation as an employer is very important and valuable, and there are also worker rights/protection laws that prevent unreasonable sacking. Not being good at a job is not considered a sackable offense.

Obviously, I was talking about reasonable sacking.

When does a shop floor engineer get the oportunity to demonstrate management skills?

When he shows those qualities. If he doesn't show them: his fault. If nobody notices, he should find a nother job.

And besides that, your assumption is simply not true. Good engineers, statistically, are less likely to recieve reward because there is no profit in rewarding someone who is already in a highly profitable position.

Ahem, you have just joined a statistic and your opinion. Statistics NEVER EVER show the cause.

This statistic sais that good engineers are less likely to receive reward. (point). The statistic does not say that this is because it isn't profitable.

Besides, maybe good engineers don't deserve more reward.
Promotions are not just things to be given by managers. People can ask for it. They can find a new job. They can start their own company and show their management skills.

 

[stormbind]

Why do nearly all experienced workers share the distinct feeling that the best engineers are kept on the shop floor, and the worst get moved to some other part of the company via promotion?

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by stormbind
Why do nearly all experienced workers share the distinct feeling that the best engineers are kept on the shop floor, and the worst get moved to some other part of the company via promotion?

Speculation:

Maybe jealousy?
Maybe Johnny Average Experience Worker thinks the best engineers deserve promotion, because they are good engineers?


Maybe, someone who is a poor engineer, cab be a brilliant manager?

Stormbind, you think there is any link at all between being a brilliant engineer and having the abilities of becoming a good manager?

I think there is not such a link.

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by Stapel


Carlos and his leftwing nonsense......

Who cares what is fair! If a company (and its shareholders) want to pay the boss 10.000, it is their business! Not one single leftwing lunatic should have a say about it. This typical socialist feature of telling companies how much they should pay the bigshots does harm economy.
Companies do not pay large salaries because they like it! They do so, because the expect someone to make the company more effective, to make more money, to make a bigger profit.
In the end, that is what makes economy run and it is what will create jobs.

Have to disagree S , think your talking pants!

Companies do pay large salaries because they like it, its all part of the gravy train, average share holders are against obscene pay awards and back handed schemes, and at many AGM there protests are ignored as there voting rights are made into only a protest vote by large corporations- nominee accounts block vote, were they also pay large over the odds salaries.
____________________________________

And No how does paying some fat cat millions a year create jobs?, and don't give me that bull**** about it attracts the
right man for the job because all big companies pay obscene wages to there "top" man.

In Britain at least, things are much worse now than ten years ago for the average worker, minimum wages increase's set against
increased taxes at higher than the rate of inflation, longer work hours, less over time, weekend work and less holidays
and you think its fine that some suit can pay himself a yearly wage 200 times that of his workers and get a performance bonus
20 times the current rate of inflation, aye right.

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by Stapel


What in the world makes you think you understand who is a good manager and who not?

A board, that does what the shareholders want, will fire the poor engineer, reward the fine engineer, and promote whoever shows management skills.

In any case, the shareholders should decide! It is their money, their company.

Stapel who do you think these shareholders are??

The majority of shares in most business companies are owned by other large companies, insurance, banking, corporate and financial institutions, the man of the street may own shares but there's no real way he can do other than show a token protest
against fat cats.

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by bholed



Stapel who do you think these shareholders are??

The majority of shares in most business companies are owned by other large companies, insurance, banking, corporate and financial institutions, the man of the street may own shares but there's no real way he can do other than show a token protest
against fat cats.

These banking, corporate and financial institutions have shareholders too.....

The man on the street is probably the last person in the world that should have a say on who should be a manager....... Unless he starts his own business.....

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by Stapel


These banking, corporate and financial institutions have shareholders too.....

The man on the street is probably the last person in the world that should have a say on who should be a manager....... Unless he starts his own business.....

_


Originally posted by Stapel
In any case, the shareholders should decide! It is their money, their company.
_--------------------

?
Now your contradicting yourself, so the shareholders can decide but only as long as he's not the man on the street?? only big business cam make the call is that what your saying? and why ?

Also how does paying some top boy millions create jobs?? from my experience in the UK its more likely, that to increase
"profits" a company will shed workers and squeeze those that remain, terms like out-sourcing, offshore, and redefine terms and conditions spring to mind.

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by bholed
Also how does paying some top boy millions create jobs?? from my experience in the UK its more likely, that to increase
"profits" a company will shed workers and squeeze those that remain, terms like out-sourcing, offshore, and redefine terms and conditions spring to mind.

There is a rather big country on our planet, where the salaries of people are hardly influenced by limits, taxes and labour unions. This country happens to have the lowest unemployment ratio in the world.

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by Stapel

-----------------------------------------
There is a rather big country on our planet, where the salaries of people are hardly influenced by limits, taxes and labour unions. This country happens to have the lowest unemployment ratio in the world.

.
----------------------------------------

Aye, how many guess's do I get? and that gives companies the right to pay their chairman a salary 50,100,200 times there workers?

--
also whats your answer re below?


-
The man on the street is probably the last person in the world that should have a say on who should be a manager....... Unless he starts his own business.....

Originally posted by Stapel
In any case, the shareholders should decide! It is their money, their company.
_--------------------

?
Now your contradicting yourself, so the shareholders can decide but only as long as he's not the man on the street?? only big business can make the call is that what your saying? and why ?

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by bholed
.
----------------------------------------

Aye, how many guess's do I get? and that gives companies the right to pay their chairman a salary 50,100,200 times there workers?

Yes, it is their money. If others start to decide what someone should do with his money, we talk about theft!

--
also whats your answer re below?


-
The man on the street is probably the last person in the world that should have a say on who should be a manager....... Unless he starts his own business.....

Originally posted by Stapel
In any case, the shareholders should decide! It is their money, their company.
_--------------------

?
Now your contradicting yourself, so the shareholders can decide but only as long as he's not the man on the street?? only big business can make the call is that what your saying? and why ?

First of all, you annoy me, by quoting me in such an unclear way.
I do not contradict myself, and you know that pretty damn well. It was your point that the man in the street is not an owner, or just for a very, unimportant small percentage.

My point is that an owner of a company has to decide how much he should pay the manager he hires. And nobody else.

If the owner happens to be walking in a street, he still is the owner of course!

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by Stapel


First of all, you annoy me, by quoting me in such an unclear way.
I do not contradict myself, and you know that pretty damn well. It was your point that the man in the street is not an owner, or just for a very, unimportant small percentage.

===================================

Right,

lets get this clear you said shareholders should be able to decide how much there chairman/director's get paid, ok

Now I own shares as does millions of UK citizen's -the man on the street, of whom you said is the last person who should decide on their pay,?!

Now my question to you is why? you contradict yourself
, are you happy that each year these chairmen/directors etc get
pay rises/bonus way above inflation.

And why should the average share holder have there wishes over ruled by the gang of corporate bullies?

 

[delsully]

Originally posted by Stapel


Carlos and his leftwing nonsense......

Who cares what is fair! If a company (and its shareholders) want to pay the boss 10.000, it is their business! Not one single leftwing lunatic should have a say about it. This typical socialist feature of telling companies how much they should pay the bigshots does harm economy.
Companies do not pay large salaries because they like it! They do so, because the expect someone to make the company more effective, to make more money, to make a bigger profit.
In the end, that is what makes economy run and it is what will create jobs.

CEOs get paid that much because they can get away with it. Your under the false illusion that CEOs are actually the difference makers in determining if a company is successful or not. This is simply not the case for 99% of American corps. CEOs can help to create temporary growth but sustaining it is a different beast. Personally, I think the distribution of the wealth in a company is considerably skewed towards the executive board.

How is the economy harmed? The CEO won't have enough money to pay his caddie at the country club?

 

[IglooDame]

Originally posted by bholed

Originally posted by Stapel


First of all, you annoy me, by quoting me in such an unclear way.
I do not contradict myself, and you know that pretty damn well. It was your point that the man in the street is not an owner, or just for a very, unimportant small percentage.

===================================

Right,

lets get this clear you said shareholders should be able to decide how much there chairman/director's get paid, ok

Now I own shares as does millions of UK citizen's -the man on the street, of whom you said is the last person who should decide on their pay,?!

Now my question to you is why? you contradict yourself
, are you happy that each year these chairmen/directors etc get
pay rises/bonus way above inflation.

And why should the average share holder have there wishes over ruled by the gang of corporate bullies?

Your ownership of shares allows you to have your say in the corporation's activities in exact proportion to the amount of money you have invested in the corporation. If you don't like the way the company is being run, you have two options available to you: sell your shares (and if enough shareholders agree with you the share price will go down), vote at stockholder meetings (and if enough shareholders agree with you you'll be able to directly change things). A third option would be to initiate a boycott of the company, you don't even have to own shares to do that.

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by IglooDude


Your ownership of shares allows you to have your say in the corporation's activities in exact proportion to the amount of money you have invested in the corporation. If you don't like the way the company is being run, you have two options available to you: sell your shares (and if enough shareholders agree with you the share price will go down), vote at stockholder meetings (and if enough shareholders agree with you you'll be able to directly change things). A third option would be to initiate a boycott of the company, you don't even have to own shares to do that.

You are correct unfortunately the vicious circle of large corporate nominees holding the lions share of the votes allows the fat cats to pay themselves salaries far in excess of there worth to the company, which is an insult to employees, private shareholders and the man on the street lol.

Also a 4th option would be for the goverment to cap, or scale back there benifits/pay, which has happen thou only in very small measures, and with new tories being in power I doubt I see much curbing of the fat cats.

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by Double Barrel

Renata, no offense, but by your own admission you did not even read the whole article.

Fair cop, and you're right that I shouldn't have criticized on imcomplete information. It pushed my buttons, and I responded prematurely.

I've read the whole thing now, though ....

Admittedly, it is a rather long one, but later he does give out figures for different handouts to rich people. And it is a simple fact that the government insurance program, The National Flood Insurance Program, "is currently the biggest property insurance writer in the United States, putting taxpayers on the hook for more than $640 billion in property."

This number is meaningless. What is the dollar value of the claims that come in yearly, on average? How much money is collected from the program's insured yearly, on average? Which number is bigger, and by how much? That's the information that's needed to make this portion of the article more than propaganda. Based on what was actually written, it's just as possible that the government is making money off the program as that they're spending money on it.

The point of the article was pretty well summed up with the quote at the beginning: "Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law." - Oliver Goldsmith

The point being that money buys influence. Corporate "welfare" is pork that only serves the interests of those that buy the influence.

Yes, and I don't doubt that it is true. I've seen enough *real* data, and experienced enough examples in my own life to prove it true beyond a shadow of a doubt. That doesn't change the fact that this article is largely biased, one-sided, propagandizing trash. Check out the bit on ADM for a further example. The point is made that ethanol is subsidized to the tune of however many million dollars as an additive to gasoline. Completely omitted is the rationale for using ethanol in the first place: it makes gasoline burn cleaner and produce fewer harmful pollutants.

Now why do you think that datum was omitted? Could it be because the article's target audience -- the more-liberal-than-average -- tends to support initiatives to reduce pollution?

That makes the article 0-for-2 on good reporting, and makes me wonder what's been omitted in the other examples.

This article is the epitome of what conservatives are talking about when they point fingers at the 'liberal media bias'. Not that they're any better. In this case, they'd be right, though. The article is so biased as to be worthless.

Renata

 

[IglooDame]

Originally posted by bholed



You are correct unfortunately the vicious circle of large corporate nominees holding the lions share of the votes allows the fat cats to pay themselves salaries far in excess of there worth to the company, which is an insult to employees, private shareholders and the man on the street lol.

Also a 4th option would be for the goverment to cap, or scale back there benifits/pay, which has happen thou only in very small measures, and with new tories being in power I doubt I see much curbing of the fat cats.

Other than being insulted by their compensation, is there some harm being done to you by this situation?

And yes, the regulation option. Regulation tends to accumulate, and closing one loophole or fixing one problem almost invariably creates another one (or two, or five) and the resulting bureaucracy and the cost of adhering to the regulations raises the cost of doing business, so you'll forgive me if I don't consider government regulation to be a worthwhile fix to something that I'm not convinced is a problem that has to be solved.

 

[Kev1916]

Originally posted by IglooDude


Other than being insulted by their compensation, is there some harm being done to you by this situation?

And yes, the regulation option. Regulation tends to accumulate, and closing one loophole or fixing one problem almost invariably creates another one (or two, or five) and the resulting bureaucracy and the cost of adhering to the regulations raises the cost of doing business, so you'll forgive me if I don't consider government regulation to be a worthwhile fix to something that I'm not convinced is a problem that has to be solved.

Well yes, In general large companies directors/chairman's pay and bonus's have risen exponentially in the last twenty years in the UK, it is far in excess of inflation and the gap between there pay and there employees has widened considerably,
and in my experience they do not deserve to be paid millions when there staff suffer, and in many cases the companies standard of service in particular the utility companies Water, electricity is very poor.
Also in the case of some companies ie the Railways has cost people there lifes as there safety standard are not good enough.

 

[bigfatron]

Not to me personally but to my colleagues - I have worked for a company that paid millions to its execs and then further millions to pay them off when they did a poor job a nd brought the firm to its knees.

At least four of the five non-exec directors on the Remuneration Committee were themselves executive directors at other top 100 companies, which meant their pay was being set by another remuneration committee made up of non-execs who were mostly directors at top 100 companies, whose pay was being determined by, etc.......

Is it any surprise that the non-execs, who are execs themselves at other firms, decide that all directors need to be paid very high wage increases each year? Would you allow a situation where teachers in each school get to decide the remuneration of the school next door? Of course not, the inbuilt bias is laughably obvious.

Back on point, who suffered from this? Well, the 1,500 staff who were sacked to make the necessary cost reductions to justify the senior management bonuses, the remaining staff who had to work longer hours on flat pay because the IT investment to deliver the efficiency gains that were meant to llow the staff reductions either wasn't made or didn't deliver, and then the other 1,500 staff sacked to deliver the cost savings to keep the company afloat.

Of course, the guy who presided over the most egregious cockups is living in the next village from me in a £2m house, his kids go to the best public (i.e. private schools) and he'll never have to work again what with £5m+ in the bank, so at least someone came out of it well.....

Top bloke though.... and his golf swing has come on great since he got paid off....