The Under Class, what do we do with them?

Visceral no one said that anyone working in low wage jobs does not contribute to society. The issue is that segment of the low wage job force that can never sustain itself for any period of time because they cannot hold jobs for any period because they lack commons ethics...more specifically the work ethic (e.g. don't steal, show up to work on time, don't piss of customers, don't lie, etc.).

 

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No Inzomina, price is not a factor of cost it is a factor of market...what people are willing to pay for your goods and services. If your cost is $5 per unit but the market is only willing to pay $2 per unit, what power is going to force the customer to buy your product at $5 per unit? This is a free market economy.

 

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Price is a factor of cost.

Benefit = price - cost

or, price = benefit + cost

If you know all your costs, only then you can set price. If your price is higher then market price, it means your cost is too high. Labor cost is not the only cost component. There are other cost components. If you cannot optimize your benefit-price-cost balance, maybe you are not in the right business.


Do burgers in McDonalds have same price as in Burger King? Do chickens in KFC have some price as in CFC? etc

 

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Let me try a different tack. Does the farmer use his costs in his pricing decisions. The answer is no. The farmer is a price taker. Now if he has the capacity, he may decide to save a portion of his crop until he can get a better price. But he is in a very competitve market. He is a price taker. The market will only pay him a certian price for his product regardless of his costs.

Costs are important to profit. But unless you are in a noncompetitve market you cannot control the price you get for a product. When pricing you need to charge what the market will bear. If your cost is a dollar per unit but you can sell your product for $10 you would set your price at $10. If the market would only pay $7 per unit then you would charge $7.

Note sales volume may also affect costs. If you are in an industry where you can recognized economies of scale, your costs will fall with increased production. Does that mean you will lower your price because your production costs have fallen? Not necessarily, that decision depends on your strategy and other market factors.

A monopoly on the other hand will factor in cost in deriving a price. Because the customers have no choice in the pricing decision. Customers cannot negotiate price and must pay whatever price the utility requires to meet its allowed profit margin.

 

I think we have going off-topic. Anyway. Both the costs and the willingness to pay are affecting price. And so does quality of your product, brands, and many other factors. If you want to increase your labor salary, it doesn't necessarily you have to increase the price of your product. You can do so by minimizing other cost. When I bring up the salary increase, I did not say it is the best solution, but it is one option. Whether it is possible or not, it depends on the business specific condition. My hypothesis is that, the better the wage, the greater is the job possession of the workers.

 

Greater wages may bring a higher caliber of talent interested in the work and will work well for that wage. But there are some individuals that are not affected by wage. Their performance will be the same regardless of pay. You could pay them $100/hour or $5 per hour and their performance would be the same.

Unfortunately some costs are not very controllable, eg. gasoline. Cost control is always a good thing in that it becomes a competitive advantage if you can keep it below that of your competitors.

 

I don't get it. To save $ on labor, a sublime idea was gradually embedded in people's mind a.k.a. "there are jobs, but they are kinda not real kind of jobs, the jobs which do not and should not pay well, offer benefits, or lead anywhere. Dead end jobs, McJobs, jobs that don't matter and serve as a stepping stone." Stepping stone where? It's simple arithmetic, there are way too many "stepping stones" and not nearly as much places to step. So, now, you want people employed in "not real" jobs work as though they are real and expect compensation etc. as though they are not.

"Rag to riches" stories served American employing class really well. Unfortunately, surrounding sea of "stepping stone" jobs don't support official myth really well. Now, employing folks expect units of labor to be honest, hardworking, cheap (a must) etc. robot zombies, carriers of good "work ethic" by default. Have you ever filled out Wal-Mart job application? Jut try, you must be a working class zombie-Angel to pass WM questionnaire.

Note, before "work ethic" was a part of official "rag to riches" myth. Work hard, work cheap, keep mouth shut and don't rock the boat and you'll make a nice plywood home eventually. Today, one has to exhibit exemplary work ethic just for the heck of it. Evolution. What's next, a chip under skull?

Good work ethic is NOT a virtue that comes from the mother's breast. Good work ethic is a result of reciprocity arrangements. Nobody expects a slave to have good "work ethic". Why wage slave should be different? If there is no reciprocity, even the most exemplary wage slaves lose "ethic" eventually (if not supervised). There is a breach in reciprocity on the national scale.

 

I like that line spouted by CEOs etc when quizzed about their outrageous 'renumeration packages'...
"If you pay peanuts you get monkeys"
Somehow its meant to be a warning to keep filling their troughs or they'll take their snouts elsewhere ie. overseas is the model of choice here. Good riddance I say. I cannot for the life of me justify $12M payout after a couple of years fleecing a company that is now looking shaky.

BTW madanthonywayne nailed it above I reckon, there are people in the workforce that do the absolute minimum not to get fired.

 

And there are many who do not even do the minimum.

 

And they get fired.... so what?

 

Have you not been paying attention Nietzschefan, jobs go overseas that is what. Also because these folks are relatively expensive to business, they drive down wages.

 

Do you have any suggestions? I've skimmed through the thread and I don't think I saw one.

 

I did suggest that mandatory public service that included a military style boot camp (similar to the Marines, Coast Guard, or Navy) might instill some sense of discipline and ethics. But I have no firm solution. The problem is not everyone makes it through bootcamp, and then what do you do. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

 

Hrm, while I'm opposed in principal to such a thing, I'm happy to think about it as an option for a bit. Wouldn't that only take care of the up and coming generations of potential "underclassmen"? I believe your question was what to do with the current crop. Would you be for sending 30 to 40 year olds to such a boot camp? Also, how would one be identified as a member of the underclass? Not being able to hold a steady job or inability to be punctual at work, for just two examples of things you've noted as underclass traits, could be due to a wide variety of factors and not just a lack of ethics and discipline.

This reminds me think of the idea of stomping out racism by tossing racists into some sort of reeducation/sensitivity camps. Not to mention the infringement on personal liberty. Just like a person should have the right to be a racist, as detestable as you and I may find it, shouldn't a person have the right to choose to be a poor worker?

 

Ashura, I said it was not the ideal solution. Ideally the solution would be found in the home. Something has happened in America. And I am not certian what it is, but I suspect it is in the home...too many fractured families...too many parental distractions. I don't know.

 

WTF??

What "underclass" jobs are going overseas? The only thing I can think of right off the bat is a parking attendant, they are usually useless anyway.

You know what Joe? I think YOU are bitching about people whom are just following an EXAMPLE set by YOU.

You are some owner or manager that probably lacks integrity (going by your posts), you obviously lack empathy and you probably lack leadership necessary to get people to want to work hard because they believe in you or what you are trying to accomplish. I've seen it so many times and I've also seen employees/workers whom have turned around on a dime, with a new manager/boss/overseer, but most importantly someone with REAL leadership skill.

Yup I think you just suck as a leader.

 

You say that, yet your entire post has been about trying to do just THAT!

Leave people alone, let them do and be what they want. Why should you, or anyone, try to force them to be what YOU want them to be or do? You make little to no sense.

Like I said earlier, you're just an elitist and you're ego-centric. Learn to live with it, but don't try to push it off onto others.

Baron Max

 

Is the OP asking if lower class people are more unethical than people who are in the upper classes? Becuase that certainly isn't true, there is no difference in ethics among people of various classes. People who have attitude problems will always have attitude problems unless they themselves decide to change. No one can nor should anyone force these people to behave as they should. When they get fired from every job they get every few weeks, and can't pay their bills that's on them. They're adults they need to figure out why things aren't working out for them and in instances like that I have little pity. Most people in this so called "under class" are hard working and don't have trouble holding down a job, unless they get laid off (which seems to be rampant these days). They just don't get paid enough to make ends meet. I live with these people. They work hard to pay their bills and provide for their children, but it seems like "when it rains it pours" and they have a hard time just staying off of the street, they aren't too occupied with moving up. Unfortunately they pass this narrow view on to their children who don't pursue an education and thus end up doing the same thing their parents did. I work crap jobs, three of them, but I'm only looking out for me. I don't have kids, if I did I know things would be a whole lot harder. I don't plan to live like this for the rest of my life, which is why I'm pursuing a degree and basically prostituting myself out to big companies in order to make the connections I need to move out of this place. But those are my aspirations, but unlike a lot of people living below the poverty line, I don't have children to provide for, I'm still young and full of idealistic naive dreams about my future, and if things get too bad I can always move back in with my "pretty well to do" parents. So I'm willing to take more risks than the average 40 year old.

 

Thank you for a bringing a breath of fresh and hard headed reality to the thread. With an attitude like that you will stand a good chance of realising at least some of your idealistic, naive dreams. Good luck.

 

You make so many assumptions I don't even know where to start!

Here's a question for you. Why do you assume that everyone that works on those industries fit that description? How about people that suffer from some form of discrimination, or people who are stuck in a situation of poverty and being taken advantage off. Because you are probably not poor, but if you WERE poor you would definitely know that people like taking advantage of poor people because they don't have enough money to hire a lawyer or enough time to fight!