I used to believe that the government should leave the capital sector alone. To a certain extent, I still think this is true, but I've come to realize that Government does in fact have business with the capital sector. Laws are passed to help address unjust behaviors and there is something that I think have been a practice long enough: Laying off people within a couple of years of their hire.
I don't care what the current administration is saying, but the economy has not gotten better. Don't just report how low the unemployment numbers are in December. Those are to show how much the Minimum Wage and seasonal jobs make up our economy. If anything, that shows how bad our economy is when the working force is dependent on $9 per hour wages, and that's only guaranteed for a couple of months if that.
Can you believe there used to be a time when one man could earn enough for a family of four or more? Apparently, my grandfather used to own a family drugstore for a while and he was able to take care of a family of nine and was still a generous man. I only heard that because it was gone by the time I was born, but the fact is that even a small business could take care of a large family. Now, a married couple with both having "well-paying" jobs, still have trouble with mortgages and want children but how they can afford to is a very good question. The economy stinks and part of it is because we focused so much on Unemployment Numbers that we neglected the Quality of Work Numbers (I don't know what the actual term would be).
How can we fix this? A law I have in mind would do two things. Protect the current jobs while giving incentives to give them raises. The law is simple. Before a company can lay off anyone, the officers and board must take a paycut to the level of 10x the lowest paid salary and keep that for a year with no bonuses (More Complicated Calculations necessary for higher brackets). The reasoning behind this is that companies claim they cannot afford a division when in fact they can. I heard of a company a few months ago that laid off 200 employees so they could afford a new VP they didn't really need. 200 salaries gone to pay one? That is unjust. Now considering that the lowest someone who works 40 hours a week can earn is around $20,000, that means the board can still earn $200,000, which might mean they have to change their lifestyle a bit, but they won't starve. After all, if they believe that laying off people is best for the company, they should prove that they believe it by sacrificing some of their pay first. Also, people at the bottom would get raises because the people at the top would want to earn more.
Have you heard of a company that pretty much did this, and still hasn't laid off many people? I have. It's Nintendo of Japan. When their latest handheld, the Nintendo 3DS launched, it was a failure. But rather than lay off employees, the CEO Satoru Iwata took a 50% paycut and board members took a 20-30% paycut and the 3DS is now a success. Just search for "Nintendo paycut 50%" and you will find articles on this. Wired reports that Iwata was making roughly $770,000. So his paycut brought him down to about $385,000. Now Japan does have a different business model than the U.S. but I think that's about 10x the lowest paid salary. In fact, they defended that Lay offs are not good for business.
I have respect for a company like that. If American companies were more like that, I think we will greatly help our economy grow and it will be peaceful. I personally would love to avoid another French Revolution because of economic injustice like the case I mentioned before. So perhaps we can all start a petition and make this proposal law by the time the next election comes around.
N. D. Moharo
Again that proposal is Before a company can lay off anyone, the officers and board must take a paycut to the level of 10x the lowest paid salary and keep that for a year with no bonuses (More Complicated Calculations necessary for higher brackets).
No comments:
Post a Comment