"Rich People" and Taxes - Page 10

noetsi · #91 (**permalink**) 04-24-2006, 04:01 PM

that Welch created looked a little different to line employees.

http://hnn.us/articles/5546.html

The downsizing phenomenon that Welch is largely responsible has been extensively studied by management researchers. They find it, consistantly, very different than potrayed by the fierecley anti-employee types that idolize him. Some examples.

Quote:

Evidence from studies by the American Management Association (AMA), Society of Human Resource Management, academic researchers, and management consultants reveals that downsizing generally fails to improve performance, productivity, or profits. Two-thirds of downsized companies have not realized productivity gains, according to AMA research, and most executives who cut back on personnel report unanticipated negative side effects.

http://www.humax.net/econ.html

In fact by every definition including profits downsizing firms do worse than companies that dont treat their employees as Welch did as disposable dog dirt. If you need hard data look at the Academy of Management Journal or Academy of Management Review - the best empirical management journals in the world and hardly liberal.

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/bibli...6-0679421327-4

How about providing any evidence that GE employed more people after he left than before he took over. Or that line employees did better under his tenure.

Rebellion · #92 (**permalink**) 04-25-2006, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noetsi";p=&quot

made his money gutting the standard of living of thousands of hard working Americans. He increased returns to a small handful of elites, IF you think that is a good thing then you do. I dont. Smaller stock profit margins, higher wages for workers is a much better thing to me. And I suspect these days to the overwhelming number of Americans.

try looking sometimes at the increase in real wages for line employees before welch took over and in the years after he took over. Wages went up faster before he took over than after. He traded worker well being for higher profits.

He increased wages across the board. So mission accomplished. I'm not an elite and neither are those who work for me, despite what moveon.org might tell you to believe. He also added over 100K jobs, any evidence that all or even most of those 100LK went to "elites?" Nope, because no such evidence exists. And unions don't want incentive pay, Welch tried it, if they had accepted then like at Microsoft there would be a lot of rich secretaries holding options.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/busin...eo4_12-05.html

As far as his reputation worldwide as a leader http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4275102.stm

http://www.happinessonline.org/Moral...leModel/p3.htm

And GE employee satisfaction grew under Welch. So does that mean with over 300K employees that GE employees mostly "elites?" If so then I guess that is quite a testament to his success, otherwise it means the employees were happy with the job he did as well as their wages, pension (along with a 401k which very few companies offer), etc. Then again, maybe you and whatever left wing website fed you this propoganda knows more than the employees who actually work there. Or the international magazines that consistently rank GE as the most admired company in the world and one of the best companies to work for

http://www.inc.com/inc500/profiles/2..._services.html

Rebellion · #93 (**permalink**) 04-25-2006, 02:09 PM

I posted one link that mentioned 250K employees under Welch in the early 90's and here by 1998 it's already 300K.

http://ge.com/stories/en/20398.html?category=News

And your link does nothing more than provide a general comment that layoffs generally don't improve businesses, and that is generally true. In fact Welch himself preached that for years, but it is not true 100% of the time and it wasn't true with GE, which is exactly why the company turned around so dramatically under his tenure.

Rebellion · #94 (**permalink**) 04-25-2006, 09:10 PM

1997 250K employees

http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/mana...t-training.php

2004 315K http://freedomink.org/node/112?PHPSE...9edfe6448b8a03

http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/unity2003_nb1_report.html

Quote:

"GE employees pay about 19% of the cost of their health care, compared to employees at our competitors who pay about 30% of the cost of care,"

Arguing from government figures, he said the average straight-time pay for UE production workers is more than 50% above the average hourly earnings for production workers.

And despite skyrocketing medical costs in 10 years employees have seen one increase in premiums, an average of $10 for one and $15 for a family of four/month increase.

http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany...3/daily44.html

Quote:

Four general wage increases and eight cost-of-living adjustments expected to raise the pay of the average hourly employee by 16.5 percent over the term of the contract;
Additional health-care benefits; Additional financial protection for employees and families include adding a new co-pay maximum that will provide protection against high prescription drug bills; The annual co-pay maximums will be $2,000 for individuals or $4,000 for families of active employees and pre-age 65 retirees; Above age 65, the new annual co-pay maximum is $1,500 each for retiree and spouse;
Major improvements to pension benefits; The contract will eliminate mandatory pension contributions for most union-represented employees; Required contributions will be eliminated under the contract term for those earning less than $60,000; Eliminating these required contributions will increase take-home pay by approximately $375 a year in 2004 and 2005 and $675 in 2006 and 2007.

Volunteerism http://www.ge.com/volunteers/
http://www.elfun.org/

Donations http://www.ge.com/foundation/grant_i...nited_way.html

Media and Execs:
Corporate governance most respected in the world
Integrity most respected in the world
Social responsibility third most respected in the world

http://www.ge.com/en/company/news/ft...?category=News

Corporate governance according to independent agency, one of 34 companies to get a perfect score http://www.ge.com/en/citizenship/governance/index.htm

Quote:

GE was one of only 34 companies to receive a perfect score of 10.0 from GovernanceMetrics International (GMI), an independent service evaluating the quality of a company’s corporate governance.

For starters...I'm sorry this doesn't jibe with your "all companies are evil" indoctrination/brain washing, but the great thing about facts is they don't change just because they don't say what you wish they did.

Xtro · #95 (**permalink**) 04-30-2006, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noetsi";p=&quot

I am Joe Doe. I earn 30 thousand a year. I spend 20 thousand of that on required consumption expenses (things like housing, clothes, food etc that are not discretionary). This is a very low number of what actually would be spent by such an income earner but I do it to give the consumption tax types a decent break. I pay ten percent of that 20k in consumption taxes 2000 dollars. I pay 6.6 percent roughly of my total income in taxes far more than Joe Rich guy.

But the reality is even worse. The real bit from taxes is not on total income but on discretionary income that which you dont need to survive. Joe Rich guy has 900,000 he does not have to spend (even with very generous definitions of that term which assumes he "needs" to have very fancy digs, cars etc compared to others). Only about 1 percent of that is touched by taxes. Joe Doe has 10k in discretionary spending (which is way high for real Americans who need to spend most of their income to get by these days). He pays 20 percent of his discretionary income in taxes. Many state and federal exise taxes are done exactly this way now (as are local taxes).

Quite a concidence n'est ce pas mes amis?

So are you saying because a person has more discretionary income than that is a reason for them to pay even more taxes than they do? That is screwed up logic. As it is right now a family with 2 kids that make 50k or less pay no federal taxes thanks to Bush.

I paid $1600 from 70k gross and a few of my friends paid 15k from 120k gross. I think people do pay their share and then some. It is funny how everyone wants more from the people who do not use any of the benefits and the ones who use all the benefits pay mostly no taxes.

How about that rich guy who gave jobs to 50 employees? You can say he is supporting 200 plus Americans and still you complain about his taxes. This is so wrong...

BroncoBilly · #96 (**permalink**) 05-01-2006, 05:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xtro";p=&quot

Quote:

Originally Posted by noetsi";p=&quot

I am Joe Doe. I earn 30 thousand a year. I spend 20 thousand of that on required consumption expenses (things like housing, clothes, food etc that are not discretionary). This is a very low number of what actually would be spent by such an income earner but I do it to give the consumption tax types a decent break. I pay ten percent of that 20k in consumption taxes 2000 dollars. I pay 6.6 percent roughly of my total income in taxes far more than Joe Rich guy.

But the reality is even worse. The real bit from taxes is not on total income but on discretionary income that which you dont need to survive. Joe Rich guy has 900,000 he does not have to spend (even with very generous definitions of that term which assumes he "needs" to have very fancy digs, cars etc compared to others). Only about 1 percent of that is touched by taxes. Joe Doe has 10k in discretionary spending (which is way high for real Americans who need to spend most of their income to get by these days). He pays 20 percent of his discretionary income in taxes. Many state and federal exise taxes are done exactly this way now (as are local taxes).

Quite a concidence n'est ce pas mes amis?

So are you saying because a person has more discretionary income than that is a reason for them to pay even more taxes than they do? That is screwed up logic. As it is right now a family with 2 kids that make 50k or less pay no federal taxes thanks to Bush.

I paid $1600 from 70k gross and a few of my friends paid 15k from 120k gross. I think people do pay their share and then some. It is funny how everyone wants more from the people who do not use any of the benefits and the ones who use all the benefits pay mostly no taxes.

How about that rich guy who gave jobs to 50 employees? You can say he is supporting 200 plus Americans and still you complain about his taxes. This is so wrong...

I think noetsi has it right. If we in the USA want to control illegal immigration and go back to living in the 7th century then we should consider noetsi's socialist point of view.

Thank God people that have a belief system like noetsi are the smallest percentage. The spirit of competition would be eradicated if people like him have their way.

#97 (**permalink**) 09-01-2006, 07:45 AM

What is the problem people seem to have with the idea that the rich should pay more taxes? It seems trivial to me that the rich receive far more benefit from the government in the United States and elsewhere than do the poor. Among these manifold benefits are roads, police protection, an educated workforce, government contracts....

Historically speaking, the last 30 years or so has seen massively low rates, and a corresponding increase in income disparity between the highest and lowest earners. If posters such as BroncoBilly and Rebellion honestly think this is "Socialism", then I'd say you need to double check your definitions.

At worst, Noetsi is a social democrat, and for you to repeatedly call him a socialist can only be an attempt to discredit him without confronting his arguments and evidence.

Further, to pretend that the government cannot spend money in a productive manner is to ignore large portions of history. To criticize and question specific government programs is fully justified, but to imagine that market capitilism is a "magic bullet" solution to our problems is at best ignorant; at worst, intellectually dishonest.

HDI and HPI
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2...ic_27_2_1.html
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2.../HDR05_HDI.pdf

For some data on the effect of the Bush tax cuts, see
http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm
and
http://www.ctj.org/

For corporate welfare and fairness of taxation, see
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-corporatewelfare.htm

For a counterpoint opinion and generally insightful criticism of big government, big tax POVs, see
http://www.cato.org/

Nuke-the-Gay-Whales · #98 (**permalink**) 09-06-2006, 06:13 PM

Oh, c'mon now friends,
I happen to know some rich people, and let me tell you, they enjoy nothing more than being taxed more heavily than those of lower social classes. Disregard the fact that someone in their family, no matter how long ago that may have been, worked extremely hard and gave up blood, sweat and tears to earn that money and those estates, let's just tax them til they bleed out their ears! I mean, if i was rich I know I would never tire of being more heavily taxed because of my fortunate situation. Punish them for being blessed!

#99 (**permalink**) 09-08-2006, 12:20 AM

Nuke-the-Gay-Whales: Your implication that they're somehow being "robbed" of their wealth is nonsensical. You did not in the slightest address my post, any of noetsi's, or really discuss "rich people and taxes." Thank you, come again.

Truth-Bringer · #**100** (**permalink**) 09-09-2006, 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashideena";p=&quot

Your implication that they're somehow being "robbed" of their wealth is nonsensical.

No, it's perfectly logical. Taxation is not a contribution. If you refuse to pay, you will receive threatening letters demanding payment. If you ignore them, eventually a case will be filed in court. If you ignore the summons and fail to appear, a warrant will be issued for your arrest and men with guns will come to your home to take you to jail. If you tell them you're not going and to leave your property, they will forcibly try to take you in. If you physically resist and fight back, they can and will legally kill you. That is taking money by threat of force, and by force if the threat isn't sufficient. That is theft, and it is immoral.

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