Lets not play it off like we didn't know all along that greed is generally the driving force of success. To be successful generally one has to have a degree of greed in them. That touch of "I want more" lends to drive folks to go the extra mile trying to get ahead.. Without it IMO many successful companies wouldn't be here today, employing hundreds of thousands of people...  But when rampant greed sees one treating their work force more like a liability than an asset, is when folks start getting unhinged.

The company I work for which was built on Unionized work force, has recently declared that they no longer need us, laid us off and brought in an all new "less expensive" non-union work force, claiming that times are hard and they need to reinvent the company to streamline profit. (many of us had been there for over 20 years).. they didn't lay off 4 office buildings worth of Management, Just those who actually do the work, ( is a construction company, Without it's labor force, management wouldn't have paper to push..) 

I personally have been thanked by the VP of the company, the Executive safety officer and most upper management in the various divisions all over the U.S. I have come in contact with over the years, for my outstanding work ethics, my diligence and attention to detail, my care and dedication to the company, keeping my equipment in mint condition, and my over all professionalism on the job. Ive got dozens of safety awards, kudos, and gleaming recommendations coming from them. But  even with all that praise and back-patting, I was still deemed too expensive to keep around. Sad part is my pay check is a mere fraction of what most of theirs are...

Yeh I believe a touch of greed is a pre-requisite to being successful, but when it comes to back stabbing the people who got you where you are today...that's when shit gets ugly..

Riddle me this:

What happens in a Consumer driven economy when you continually reduce the number of viable consumers?

If Joe is replaced by automation, then he can no longer afford to purchase a new car. Without that sale then bill the car salesman has to cut back on his fast food habit. Now Jim the fast food franchise owner has less money to spend on his liquor habit. Etc etc etc

Its funny because I work for one of those major "evil" corporations, and as sales drop they are continually cutting labor costs while spending crazy money on things like having elton john perform at the stock holders meeting and giving the senior management bonuses/raises, and I just laugh cause long term they are cutting their own throats. (especially considering they are the largest employers in the U.S.)

As sales continue to be lower than expected they continue to blame it on everything else without even thinking about the impact that the reduction in both the numbers of their own labor force and the amount of hours they pay the existing labor force (read extra spending money) has on their own sales. Not to mention the overall economy.

I wish more board members and upper management had this sort of mentality, typically it's whats the cheapest while keeping the quality loss to a minimum.. in some cases quality of the work and end product suffer greatly as they milk the company dry before filing bankruptcy.

Which is what i think is my case, the execs trying to boost their dividends while systematically running the company right in to the ground. By selling off everything not nailed down,reducing the crews to a skeleton and dropping union workers for untrained labor. I figure another few years and they will sell off the remainder of hollowed out shell of a company they bought 10 or so years ago..Thus effectively destroying one of the most well known and oldest construction company's in the US.

I think they do have this mentality, at least at most companies.  My day job is for one of the companies sure to be listed anytime you ask someone to name the "10 most evil" or "10 worst" or any such list of companies in America.  It's a company that has gone through serious well publicized reorganization over the last 5 years including laying off thousands of employees and has received no end of bad press because of all of it.  

I'm with the company precisely because their board realized that they needed to improve drastically in some areas of their business and, despite ongoing re-orgs and layoffs, decided they needed to spend more in other areas to get better talent.  (NOTE:  I'm not saying they decided to hire me specifically, I'm not that important, but the specific hiring program that brought me into the company was a result of this 'must spend more to get better' mentality).  Once companies cross into the large corporation realm it's never as simple as "keep people" or "lay them off".  Layoffs and hiring programs are themselves strategic programs just like new products are.  They are considered both on individual merits, that is the benefits of laying off group X or hiring in section Y, as well as on their strategic organizational benefits (just like new products are evaluated on how they fit within the company's portfolio of products).  

I have no idea in your particular case and won't pretend to speak to that, but as a general rule the bad place that union labor finds itself in today is largely its own fault.  When unions shifted from their industrial revolution focus on actual safe working conditions and assuring a living wage to the modern day collective bargaining for ever-improving pay and benefits no matter what it was only a matter of time before unions priced their members out of the market.  The thing that kept unions going despite this behavior was the lack of an alternative (a unionized company had no other choice but to deal with the labor union in question).  

That changed in the last 15 years as states realized they could offer right to work conditions while still requiring the company meet some minimum level of safety and working condition quality (the original concern of unions). It's the reason companies like Boeing are opening new plants in non-union states and the reason why the Big Three autos have tried to move away from union states.  Those non-union plants will be just as safe and manned by as qualified engineers as the union plants, but at a fraction of the cost which is the only way for those companies to compete globally.  Unions, as a general organizational category, failed at the long game by not making allowances for things like economic conditions under which the company operates.  

A good example is the local teachers unions for the districts around where I live.  Through the last five years, while everyone who works in NYC was going through wage freezes and layoffs and fear of layoffs and ever increasing local property taxes to make up the gaps of exploding public sector expenses, teacher's unions were threatening to strike every year if they didn't get their 6% annual raise, COLA, and increased yearly vacation (as examples among other things).  Because of this, there is a strong public backlash throughout the region against the local teachers' unions, who until recently enjoyed status as an untouchable group.  Entirely their own fault. 

My larger point is that, like almost everything in life, this discussion isn't black and white.  It's not "company X wants to lay everyone off because they are evil" and "company Y pays great because they are the good guys". People here commend SD as a great place to work, but SD received no end of grief after WOM when they laid people off as a result of its bad launch.  Companies operate to stay in business and to protect their shareholders money.  This is the purpose as an organization.  They do this by making good decisions and pushing out good products (or services). Labor is merely a component of that.  It's the failure of our government to provide a stable, predictable environment for companies to operate that has led to the hoarding of cash and the anemic growth.  Under the current economic conditions companies are doing what responsible companies should be doing.  If you want to rage against those at fault, rage against those who create the terrible economic conditions.  

But really is it the unions fault or Americas desire for cheaper stuff?

Unions were not deemed greedy for the most part till we started mass importing everything under the sun. Then the demand for the "more costly" home made items dropped like a lead balloon..The Union's were called "greedy" for wanting to keep the American worker at his current level of income while the American manufacturers wanted to drop them down to 3'rd world country wages, so they could "compete with the over flow of cheap imports".

When the import models hit the market years ago, one could purchase 2 of many of the import models offered for the price of a single fullsize American car, Yugo was one of them. Almost over night decimating the American car industry. But It's the greedy unions and the union members to blame?.. No.. It's the American obsession with "bargain prices" no matter what the effect it has on the economy.

It has become our national Past time to blame everyone else but ourselves..

The save a buck now and be unemployed later mentality of the American society has been our Achilles heel for quite a few decades now, and will be till we collapse under our own weight.

Really Some jobs like truck driving I'd feel safer with a Union member, than some untrained yahoo with a CDL. Teamsters offers full training on most of the various types of trailers out there. As well as defensive driver courses..It's scary to think of an untrained driver out there hauling 80 tons of death behind him...

Before anyone say's "But the government regulates the drivers testing and and regulations".. Really?? think about it.. how many driver's did you see this morning on the way to work that made you ask yourself "how the hell did that moron get a license?" Govenment testing at it's finest..

True professionalism is not relying on barely meeting the minimum requirements of "government testing and regulation", but taking the initiative to go beyond that and educate yourself in all aspects of your chosen profession.

The thing you are complaining about, the desire to make goods available as widely as possible as cheaply as possibly while still being profitable, is the exact thing that has allowed the human race to reach an unprecedented (and still growing) level of quality of life.  The fact that exotic or expensive goods continue to get cheaper and therefore are more widely available is why even the "poor" in the United States typically have an average of over 1 car per household, a TV, a modern video game system, a computer and have a life expectancy into the 70s (higher once you account for violent crime).  

Eliminate the thing you are complaining about (which is really the driving force behind capitalism) and that all goes away.  We're back in a protectionist society where the poor can't afford quality of life items, where the ability to drive to find work isn't an option and where you don't have household quality of life improving devices like laptops and smartphones and TVs and whatnot.  Again, like most progressive ideas, this hurts the poor disproportionately.  The rich can and will always be able to afford those items whose prices you just drastically increased.  The poor can't. 

Instead of complaining about the "good old days" and how life today is so bad we should take the time to understand that capitalism and human nature are what they are and we should adjust for that.  The problem isn't companies looking to make a profit nor Americans looking for more access to goods.  Those instincts are good and lead to an increased quality of life for consumers (because the only way to continually make a profit is to continually improve or to make your goods more widely available by making them cheaper).  The problem is poorly thought out government programs designed to be the magic bullet cure all of our ills.  They distort the market against some people in favor of others and lead to all sorts of inefficiency and barriers to entry that only end up helping big corporations while hurting both the poor and the entrepreneur.  You can't blame the corporations for that, they are just participants in the system.  You have to blame the people making the rules for making bad rules.  

We keep voting for these idiots despite the fact that their magic bullets repeatedly fail, repeatedly make the problems worse, and half the time are only really designed to benefit political supporters rather than the people they will benefit.  We, the citizens of the US, have incentivized politicians to offer us gimmicks in exchange for real solutions because we'd rather feel good about the nice sounding gimmick than take the time to understand the nuance and complexity of the potential real solutions.   

If you buy an iPad you're paying a premium for brand name.  Buy a cheap Android tablet.  Get 90% of the functionality for $150 or less.  Hell, buy a N7 and get 100% of the functionality for half the price.  But that's irrelevant.  Think of what you're getting for that price.  10 years ago you would have spent thousands for the same functionality.  

Hell 4 years ago your only choice was an iPad for $500+.  In 4 short years you have dozens of options, some of which are $100.  That's capitalism at work. Companies saw the market created by Apple and realized they could expand it buy offering alternatives that were cheaper, thus bringing tablets to the masses.  I can get my kid a really good tablet for school for $150.  This is a market that largely didnt' exist 4 or 5 years ago and now they're cheap that it's legitimate to save up and get one with a tiny bit of extra money each week.  Capitalism is choice.  You may not get an iPad specifically, but you have a whole host of choices that are cheaper now.  

Your example proves my point.  

The system is certainly flawed and the gaming of the social safety net is part of the problem.  But it's not capitalism that's at fault.  I'll say this again and again because ultimately it's the only point that matters, the fault lies with a government full of politicians who dream up magic bullet solutions without understanding the impact of those solutions, the likely problems caused or exacerbated by those solutions and, in the worst cases, not really designed to solve anything at all but to reward cronies.  

You and I agree that there's a problem.  We even agree on most of what that problem is.  The difference is you aren't willing to see that it's the system that is at fault, not the individual actors within the system.  Greed exists, the profit motive exists, but that's one of the reasons why capitalism works.  Because it aligns the incentives that spur human nature with the greatest possible impact.  When accompanied by the right rules it channels human nature in a productive direction.  Things go awry is when favor-monkey politicians muck around with the rules screwing everything up with either half-assed ideas or fully thought out ideas designed to help political friends at the expense of constituents.  

You're nefarious company, the one that is laying off productive employees solely to pad their executive's leadership?  They'll be out of business before long or they'll sell of a shell of a company and likely take huge losses in the process.  You said so yourself.  The system worked, by punishing bad management. 

I've yet to meet a rich person whose motivation in life was material wealth.  Wealth tends to be a byproduct of doing something else.  I never set out to be rich. I just wanted to make really cool stuff.  It's not about wanting stuff. It's about wanting to DO stuff.

You're still blaming the players, not the people who control the rules of the game.  The rules of the game determine how people and organizations act.  And for the record you should be glad to be an expense.  I know I am.  It means I have a job and that my company considers me to be of value.    

The problem with many "poor" people is that they have what I believe to be the same physiological make up as some sloths or toads.  I am not saying they are as stupid as that.  What I am saying is that they are lazy creatures.  They do not understand the value of work like normal people.  They cannot push themselves to get out of bed on time in the morning like a regular working guy can.  I don't think they give a crap about the fact that they are entirely dependent on other people's hard earned money. 

/sarcasm

Now... don't I sound like an asshole?  In a discussion like this generalizing an entire class of people is unproductive and pointless.  

"Rich" people, as you put it, are no more the shitty Hollywood movie caricatures you make them out to be than poor people are the caricatures I described above.  They're all just people with hopes and dreams and challenges and problems.  In both instances there are the occasional bad eggs in the "group".  But this idea that just because someone is wealthy it makes them some sort of villain is part of our society's problem.  The vast majority of wealthy people are regular, every day people who were very successful at something and should be emulated (their habits, their work ethic, their ability to align their passion with the job, etc).  Just like the vast majority of extremely poor people are sympathetic people in need of a hand.  Taking the extreme example of either as the generalized example is silly, at best, and is useless as a basis of discussion. 

Very cool discussion. Sadly my englisch is not good enough to participate, but i would side me with HG_Eliminator.

I believe that this is the natural end, should we let the free-marketers run their course, but the 1% will not suffer anything from this, and reap nearly the entire benefit in the future.  Regression to the mean.

I think we can do better than that, or delay it enough so that technological advancement can outpace the regression to the mean, which is the minimum realistic goal.

The regression to the mean of the American workplace benefits those Americans who are immune to this regression, due to being able to use the global markets more effectively- this tends to be the 1% in general.   This creates inequality, and I would define this as an externality- so the free-market fails in this regard, and compensation is needed.  (like any other externality or market-power inequality that distorts the free market away from competitiveness)

I've read studies claiming exactly what you just said.  Plenty of wealthy folks are good people.   However, I've ran into a segment of the wealthy who really view their wealth in a way similar to folks view their achievement points, or a high score in a videogame. 

  I also agree with you in your philosophy about Ayn Rand, and why I consider objectivism an outright evil philosophy (note: libertarianism is not objectivism- the best comparison of objectivism is to libertarianism as Al-Qaeda or the Westboro Baptists are to Islam or Christianity)

I don't lump in all the rich with psychopaths/serial killers, but there are some out there, and they can cause massive damage, and the shareholder/dividend structure leads those sorts of people into leadership positions, because they are the folks who deliver the dividends and profits the shareholders want in aggregate.  (often the stakeholders have a fiduciary duty to their investors which precludes any ethical considerations)

The technology already exists the economy just hasn't shifted to a new equilibrium yet.

Seems like that company is taking a huge drop in employee skill. I guess they must think it is worth it. Not all companies would agree. I'm not sure you can maintain your status as a fashionable brand when your sales people are all students with no training or incentive.

I've been stuck in the part-time worker trap. However I know who to blame and it's mostly government regulation. If the government says you have to pay full-time more and give them benefits of course companies are going to move to part-time. Government needs to equalize part-time and full-time regulation.  Also workers are facing reduced bargaining power due to high unemployment but I think that will fade as the economy adjusts. Workers will get training and jobs will open up in areas that require more skills. Then part-time will start to earn as much as full-time and companies will start to hire full-time again. Of course that is only in areas that aren't completely replaced by automation.

Software companies are a bad example because they require no physical proximity to consumers. 99% of jobs still do.