It's officially a word in the Webster's (I think that's the one) English Dictionary. It means to search by a online "search engine":yep:

Another meaning for Google - with his goo-goo-googly eyes.

If my theory is utopian Skybird then yours is myopic. 4 out of 5 companies (at least)? Really. If that were even close to being true there would be no stock market at all because investors would be throwing their own hard earned money away (at least) 4 out of 5 times.

Those who purchase stock in a company are looking to see the company grow so they can make a profit on the money they've invested. Allowing management or anyone else (including the workers) to run the company into the ground not only eliminates that profit but most, if not all, of their investment as well.

Who cares as long as the first profit earnings were maximized. Common practice is that then you retreat and withdraw your money, and rush to your next victim to suck it's blood. In fact modern investement fonds tend to do especially like this: buy as many shares as needed to gain influence, then enforce business policies that help to get out as much profit as possible in the shortest ammount of time, and then leave it behind. It often includes oa healthy company taking credits and making debts - with which it is left after the investors retreated. There was no interest in the longterm perspective of that company one is investing in from the very beginning. - If you give somebody money and then demand that he should give you regular profit that finally even exceeds your investement, while you do nothing when he does the dirty work with his hands, so that he is effectively working for you and your financial interests, then this is in the end just this: buying a slave. From a moral standpoint, the system is undefendable. - You said investements so that the company can grow and modernize. Well, healthy economizing is if they run their business in that way that they do not give away the profits they make, but use these profits to invest in their modernization. what have other foreigners to do with that? If you do a good job, and produce something that attracts customer's interests, you will not only cover your running costs, but have a profit left. that is not exclusively reserved for the management, but for the workers as well. A part for each of them, and a part for further investment. Solid, and easy. The brother of my grandmother was running a textile company in exactly this way, men's fashion, shirts for the most - no foreign investors, no taking credits, the man said you cannot spend money that you have not earned before. There was a much slower growth than with other companies, but it was a solid increase, a constant continuation of the trend of slow growth - even in times were the branch already started to suffer from imports from Asia, and the general trend of fashion companies in Germany was pointing down. The company was healthy when he sold it. The new management "invested", and vbrought in capital from foreign investors, in order to modernize (whatever that should have meant, for the company obviously was competitive and had slowly increasing profits and offered safe jobs). The new investors ewanted to see quicker profits, the polcies were chnaged, and it became more risdky and less solid, and more and more it all was run with money that the company did not own. It ended how sooner or later every such story must end, if not after years then after decades: the once healthy business collapsed, finacial reserves were transfered into fonds of foreign investors, then bankruptcy, all jobs lost, debts, a social plan for which the state and the tax payer had to come up for. Only winner in this: thoise people who pumped money into it to gain control, take all profit, and once there was no more blood to be sucked out, they left the sinking ship. Fan-tas-tic. Our medias are filled with such stories, since many, many years.

What has all that to do with China's way of modernizing it's economy? :lol:

If I work three times as hard as you, does my opinion count three times more than yours? ;)

Yet for all that there are there are thousands of publically traded companies which have managed to avoid your Faustian fate. Yeah the media loves to cover such stories like they do with anything bad or negative, but only a fool would believe that such stories represent the more than a small percentage of companies out there.

Oh and dude, paragraphs, please. No seriously...

What does opinion have to do with how hard anyone works?

He probably meant to compare opinion, apples and prices for apples. But I did not got what he was after.

If you stand at the assembly production line, and your boss sits in the office - could his work be so much more worth that it is justified that you are paid let's say 2000 dollars per month, while he maybe gets 2 million? And if he makes a bad decision and you loose your job and others must accept loan cuts, while he just is fired, but still is left with 2 million dollars multiplied by the number of months he worked there, is that just?


We need laws that managements must accept legal liabilities for the decisions they make. So far, they only could loose their jobs, as long as they did not act criminally so that they could be brought to court. Incompetence is something you are not held responsible for by your orivate savings. You have no risks in that position. Such new laws of course must include their private savings. It cannot be that the worker when causing the assembly line standing still for the second time is loosing his job and his family faces existential threats, while managers just get fired but taking all the money they made with them - ridiculous sums, often even with payments continuing for months or even years. that'S a way I want to be penalized - not needing to work, but still being payed, at least being left with the hundreds of thousands, or millions that I made! It is easy to make risky decisions and policies if you do not have anything private at stake. If your own existence also is at risk - could you imagine how quickly business would change and become more cautious, and interested in creating soldiity instead of quick profit, unlimited expansion and risky fusions? I can tell you!

As long as managers do not really risk anything themselves, they are just playing - monopoly. They can win real money, but they can only loose nothing. Don't be surprised that they do the way they do, then. when I drive in a race simulation, I do stunts and take risks I never would dare to try when driving a real car - with my own health and wellbeing at risk.

In the example in the beginning, I would like to see a difference in loans between the lowest and the highest jobs in a company i the range of a factor of about 10. I think that does far more justice and is more realistic, when comparing the advanatges and disadvanatges of both kinds of jobs - the administration, and the worker stadning hour for hour at the assembly line.

If I work with my head, and you work with your hands, is my job then more worth than yours? Or the other way around? Imagine the toilet cleaner or the craftsman maintaining your electrical systems, and water, and heating would no longer do their job. You would learn in record time how important they are.

P.S. a psychophysiological fact: the human brain is not able to form real representations of numbers in excess of some twenty only. But managers or politicians easily speak about millions, billions, and losses of these they just wave off. It is fair to say that they really do not know what they are talking about, from a physiologist's standpoint. :lol:

It was a simple joke, as Sky said, on the relationship of apples and opinions. I cannot take Communism seriously, it's a dunderhead theory only supported by those with an appallingly loose grasp of reality and human nature.

Yes.

The assembly line guy chose his job, he made the choices in education and his character and level of ambition determined where he is. That boss makes decisions that affect the whole company, decisions that could make or lose millions. If it's so easy, go ahead, start your own company, and feel free to pay the line workers $100,000 a year. No one is stopping you, but you.

Maybe instead of one captain running a ship, all the crew should make the decisions.

Next time you need eye surgery, or someone to negotiate a large business deal, get the guy who installs your carpet do do it. And makes sure you pay him the same as you would a surgeon or attorney.

:up: :up: :up: :up:

Whatever happened to the Marxist "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" then? :hmm:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...33&postcount=7

Thats what happend.

That there shall be differences in loans I do not question. But the immense difference between the assembly worker and the company leader reaching into the range of four digit factors - this is ridiculous. There simply is no management process that is let's say one thousand times more worth than what the worker does. without workers, the management would be useless, so in a way the dependance is mutual. If noone is there willing to be led, the leader will find himself in a very lonely position.

I also seriously doubt the quality of many top mangements, their competence. Judging by how many experiments go wrong, they are not worth the ridiculous sums these people get payed.

And as I said, I want people earning hundreds of thousands and millions to be held responsible for their decisions. If they made weak decisions, that do serious damage, they have to give back an approriate ammount of money they have earned for deciding that failure. they must assist in repairing the damage. In private law, that is common consensus.

A demand that is shared by former chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD) and former foreign minister Genscher (FDP) as well, to name just a few. The failure of an assembly worker, and the failure of the top manager cause different dimensions of consequences. Nevertheless the one doing the smaller dmaage gets penalized more seriously, but the the one eventually kicking hundreds and thiusands of families into misery - looses nothing. That violates every common sense and reason. And it prevents to encourage more solid, responsible decision making of manager, and makes it easier for them to play with the risks that havbe to be faced not by them, but by others. the current airbus crisis is a good example, or the crisis between Daimler and Crysler. About how many thousands of jobs and existences we talk, do you remember? Former Airbus managers just got fired, nevertheless now enjoy their wealth. Germany looses 3800 jobs in an extremely weak region, France looses 4300, Spain and Britain also one or two thousand. those responsible loose nothing. How many jobs are in danger with Crysler? I forgot, but it also was talked of several thousand. Just two examples. And many German major companies, in times when their were losses, and cutbacks, and workers had lesser netto wages, and got fired - accepted to raise the earnings of their managers by up to 30%. What kind of economical crisis or troubled business should this be?

Can't disagree more with you, Neal. Differences in wages - okay. But also: shared risks, please, not a mentality of "the wins for me, the losses for the others". And differences in wages please within a reasonable range. a factor of 500, 1000 or several thousands is not within a reasonable frame. It is excessive and brutal selfishness.

I also did not say that workers should be payed manager's fees, I said that top managers often earn too much. so instead of paying the worker 100.000, I would pay the manager maybe ten times or 20 times as much as the worker, depending on the company we talk about. And not hundreds of thosuands, and millions. That he makes decisions, is no argument. as I said, if he fails, and does not commit a crime, he will not be held responsible: he will loose nothing but his job. when you have earned alraeyd a million, the loss of your job hardly is life-threatening. For the worker, it is a most substantial threat to his family.

you also said that the worker choosed his job, and choosed his education. Sorry, but this idealization of social realities is perceived in europe as a typical anglosaxon tradition. Most workers are there, because they do not have a choice. But often, social realities are that of an almost predetermined fate. People do not have equal chances. Your social origin in the overwhelming majority of cases is a most decisive variable that heavily influences your fate. What you said sounds a bit of the "from dishwasher to millionaire" story. That is mone of America'S grweat myth's, it is almost a mythological basis. Sometimes , RARELY!, that works. If fate helps, and if you are lucky. And for every winner, I tell you, there are thousands of loosers. Some loose by their own fault. Most do not. They loose from the very beginning for being poor, raised in poor families, in social underclass, having less options available. there are also links between mental capacity, and the social environemnt you get raised in. . Ask some social scientist on the undeniable statistical links between social milieus and future perspectives. that kind of data is old news, really. What you say is not only absurd, but an offending of millions and millions who try and fight and try and try more - but simply can't make it, they lack the chance, or they fail to fulfill preconditions they cannot compensate by their own possebilities. We do not start into life, having equal chances. that is a myth, too. A very mean and cynical myth, I would add.

You see it far too simple. Please do not make the mistake the judge the vast crowd by the bad examples set up by the few who live like parasites from social wellfare - such dirtbags exist, yes. But in no way they classify for being labelled as the majority, or even a major portion of the crowd. If you don't believe me, come over here. I may be out of that business for a longer while now, but I still can show you around in Frankfurt, Berlin, to make you change your mind. I am sure it is not much different in America: the term "working poor" was formed there, not here.

If one amongst thousands makes it from rags to riches, then this hardly can be an example illustrating that the system functions if people only would work hard enough. If it proves anything, than that 999 do not come through. Many work until braking point - and still do not have enough. chances for thei children will be even worse than they were for the parents. Their numbers a rapidly increasing. If you do not see that in your country, i promise you it is only a question of time until you will see it nevertheless.

I am not arguing that every man should be made equal, and no differences anymore. But I argue that we need to try to reduces differences to reasonable dimensions, especially if the present situation is increasingly harmful for more and more millions of people.

Are you sympathetic to communism, Skybird?

I am a simple man so after years of being taught to not only hate them, but willing to help elimnate their right to excist as a country I'm willing to try to understand them ... I see the USSR has changed.

I just have to be a little leary of the theory ... of course this doesn't mean that I hate you.

I decided to look up the meaning.

com•mu•nism

1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property
b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2cap
a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R.
b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production
c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably
d : communist systems collectively

Dustbin of history? :)

Top managers of very large companies with many thousands of employees may make huge salaries, but they are very, very few in comparison to the total number of employed in an organization of that size. Lower and middle management certainly don't make that kind of cash, they often make less than even some of the guys down on the factory floor.

In the kinds of companies that pay their executives that kind of money you could restrict them to 10 or 20 times the low end workers salary, as Skybird suggests, divide it amongst the rest of the employees equally and they'd all get maybe 10 bucks a piece extra a week. Big deal.

Sky is right, everyone does not have an equal chance in life. What we do in life directly affects our childrens and their childrens chances for success as much as luck and fate do. Utopian dreams of somehow reversing or resetting the bad luck and mistakes of previous family generations to provide succeeding generations the exact same chances in life are as impossible to attain as the Communist ideal.

Communism CAN work. It has some good ideas.

Its been controlled by the wrong types.

It's ripe for control by the "wrong types" and therefore completely unsuitable as a national system. This is because in any large group of people you will find plenty of that sort so eventually a Stalin type will get into power and subvert it. You can't prevent it, its just human nature and the law of averages.

I believe that Communism could only really work in a society that was small enough for everyone to personally know everyone else. When the effect of each members contribution to the society can be seen and appreciated personally and not have their labors benefit some stranger whose reciprocation is both unknown and soon doubted.