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To: GraceZ who wrote (56138)	3/17/2006 7:29:07 PM
From: Mike Johnston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

i>I base their pay on what I need to keep them working for me All true, productivity is the primary factor. If productivity tanks, your profit goes down and you are out of business. But assuming constant productivity, if CPI jumps 10% and the employee gets only 2% raise he might bolt (this is equivalent to a wage going down). And the potential replacement will demand more as well. So the CPI can be one of the factors in determining pay.

To: GraceZ who wrote (56138)	3/18/2006 3:44:54 AM
From: shades	Respond to of 110194

I have never paid someone or raised their rate based on what they needed to live. I base their pay on what I need to keep them working for me, what they produce for my business and a margin above what I might have to pay someone else to replace them (accounting for the increased costs of training someone new). My political science professor who was also a womans studies teacher was big on the living wage rallys at one of my colleges. She said we had to pay the cafeteria and yard people and others a living wage. My econ professor had us study minimum wages and write a lot of papers on third world economies where there was no minimum wage. Either we bring them up to have the same human rights we do, or they will drag us down to have the same cheap wages they do - looks like we are heading in the wrong direction. Some say let them do it themselves or it won't last - we can't export our methods to other countries. Britain exported a lot of her culture and I think it made the world a better place. They just had a show on the history channel - how william shatner changed the world - the guy that made star trek said imagine a future where no child starved and where education was free for all. I really disliked that feminazi womens studies prof - but is the world we have the preferrable one Grace - paying people less than a living wage? I cant compete if a man in mexico or china is willing to do it for cheaper, but if human rights were enforced globally and workers rights - then the playing field is level. I like level playing fields, makes things go smoother it seems. American workers used to a certain standard of living is seeing that life die as cheaper immigrant labor comes in and works under the radar for cheaper. And the old evils are creeping back in with that immigrant labor, 100 hour work weeks, barely enough money to afford a pack of ramen noodles for the 9 kids, etc etc. We dont want thier evils infecting us - we want our strengths infecting the rest of the world no? I just watched on history international they were talking about hidden passageways - and Hitler had these underground passages where he had slaves build V2 rockets. That was CHEAP labor - about 50 people per day died - but we could always find more jews to throw into the work. They would hang the dead bodies from the ceilings of the work floor to remind the slaves how close mr. death was. They dont mention the german v2 tunnels in the program description. Here is the episode - Secret Passages - Combat Passages: In this revealing look at the use of concealed passages in wartime, we visit the Dutch town of Maastricht, which sits atop over 200 miles of hidden passageways; the Swiss Alps, home to a maze of hidden tunnels and caverns large enough to house the entire Swiss military; and the tunnels of Cu Chi in Saigon, which stand as monuments to the Vietnam War. I used Mr. Google to shed some light: v2rocket.com This chapter explains the history of the Mittelbau complex, the organization of the underground Mittelwerk V-2 assembly plant, and how the V-2 assembly line functioned. It also describes the discovery of the plant by the Americans and their race to remove V-2 parts, people, and papers to the United States. Immediately after the war, while America was building its own rocket program on the foundations of German technology, the horrible reality of slave labor used during V-2 production was concealed from the public. Only in the past 10 years, as prisoners’ histories have been published, have we begun to understand more. Estimates put the number of prisoners used by the Germans for V-2 production at - Mittelbau at more than 60,000. Over 25,000 of these were killed either by beatings, starvation, and sickness in the complex, or by the brutal efforts of the SS to relocate them before the Americans arrived in April, 1945. We now know that many of the most shocking “concentration camp pictures” that are seared into our common consciousness from this era were taken by U.S. troops as they entered the Mittelbau camps. Many of us are impressed by the technical achievement of building so many complex new weapons so rapidly under such harsh conditions. As we mull over this achievement, however, we must never forget the scope of the human sacrifice made for each piece and part disgorged from these workshops. It is a little known truth that more people died manufacturing the V-2 than were killed by its blast. Each operational V-2 to come off the Mittelwerk line consumed about six human lives. Human progress at the cost of human dignity is a fine line Grace. Suppose I did base it on CPI. Now suppose what I have them do hasn't gotten any more productive in the time they worked for me. In fact their productivity could be falling and I'm getting less from them an hour than when they started. If I base their pay on the CPI then I'm soon paying them more than they produce for me. So they have great pay in the same year their job disappears as my biz goes bust. If the playing field was equal globally, you could not find a cheaper laborer to replace your minimum wage folks, producitivy might slow in your example. In a level playing field the slowing would be universal eh? There is nothing like 50 dead bodies hanging over your work floor to get you motivated as Mittlebau proves.